(1) Parents, teachers, health professionals, and other adults
have been concerned about the influence of the media on
children and adolescents for many decades. Exposure to media
is inescapable. It is part of enculturation, of learning to be an
adult, and part of one’s society. Media provide the main vehicle
for education and information sharing and for almost all forms
of entertainment. It is estimated that Americans spend at least
10% of their lives watching TV…Exhaustive research has studied
the possible effects on attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors of
messages presented in print or electronic media.
(2) Today, most teens have their own TV with cable, VCR/DVD and CD players, and interactive video
games all in the privacy of their own rooms 24H, 7 days a week. Those who do not have these items
almost always have friends who do. Most have their own computers and connection to Internet; they
have access to virtually any kind and degree of violent and sexual content and anything else one could
imagine. Interactive media create new dimension of potential harm as users participate and become
emotionally involved in activities that are violent, erotic or even both. Most teens have signed onto social
networking sites (e.g. MySpace, Facebook). In addition to regular communication with friends and
relatives, they may have electronic conversations with people whose identities are completely unknown
and whose motives may include sexual solicitation.
(3) Messages related to sex, drugs, and violence surround us at all times in most environment at various
levels of explicitness and intensity. Each individual child, adolescent, and adult will interpret each
message in the context of his or her upbringing, family environment, religion, culture, and many other
influences. The same message may have harmful, beneficial, or neutral effects on different people and
different effect on the same person under different circumstances.
(4) Print media are readily available to all children, but adults generally have control over selection and
distribution and can monitor their content unlike children and adolescents. However, it may be possible
to shield them from exposure to all media messages that adults consider inappropriate or potentially
harmful. It’s possible to help children and adolescents learn how to distinguish messages that are
designed to sell products, messages that are products in themselves, and messages that are informative
or entertaining. It’s possible to guide them to media messages that encourage safety and good health and
away from messages that promote unhealthy content.
http://www.acog.org