Plugged In: How Media Attract and Affect Youth by Patti M. Valkenburg & Jessica Taylor Piotrowski

Author:Patti M. Valkenburg & Jessica Taylor Piotrowski [Valkenburg, Patti M. & Piotrowski, Jessica Taylor]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780300218879
Google: AkuRDgAAQBAJ
Amazon: 0300218877
Publisher: Yale University Press
Published: 2017-01-15T00:38:45.105000+00:00

Conclusion

Adolescents are growing up in an environment replete with sexual messages. In movies, games, advertisements, or Google searches, teens are frequently confronted with sexual media content. Unfortunately, much of this media content presents a view that is unrealistic and stereotypical—often treating women as mere sex objects and men as sex seekers. Over time, these distorted messages can influence teens’ sexual cognition, emotions, and, in some cases, sexual risk behavior.

It should be emphasized that the longitudinal relationships between sexual media content and sexual cognition, emotions, and behavior are often reciprocal. For example, adolescents who begin having sex earlier seek out sex in the media at an earlier age. Both behaviors, after all, are expressions of the same phase in their sexual development: seeking sexual media content gives these interested adolescents new ideas and contributes to their sexual experiences at an earlier age.

We also see that not all adolescents are equally susceptible to the effects of sexual media content. Boys and girls do not seem to differ appreciably in their susceptibility to the effects of sexual media content, but other factors do seem to increase susceptibility. Some effects of sexual media content seem to hold particularly for adolescents in early puberty. Other effects, especially cognitive ones, seem to hold more for teens who believe that the media’s representation of sex is realistic and who are less sexually experienced. More research is needed to better identify which youth are especially susceptible to the potentially negative effects of sexual media content, and how media education may serve as a protective factor for these susceptible youth.53

Finally, while continued efforts to understand the negative consequences of sexual media content exposure are crucial, it is also important to realize that sexual media content can serve as a positive role model for children and teens today. Thus far, the studies on positive effects are promising—showing, for example, delay of sexual initiation, improvement in condom self-efficacy, increased knowledge of sexual risks, and even removal of sexual references from social media profiles.54 In the future, we hope to see more work designed to evaluate how media can support the development of healthy sexual knowledge, sexual self-confidence, and tolerance of sexual diversity.

In an era when sexual media is omnipresent, when teens are becoming “senders” of sexual media content (for example, via sexy selfies; also see chapter 13), and when sexual content is available at the touch of a button, it is imperative for scholars to continue to ask questions about who is affected by this content, why this influence occurs, and whether and when such effects may be troublesome. As with media violence, this issue is not a black-and-white debate about whether a particular type of media content has effects on teens. It is time to move way from a public debate characterized by a competition between parties with traditional or liberal ideas about human behavior, and move toward a more balanced approach that addresses the crucial questions discussed in this chapter.

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