A recent UW-Madison two-year study revealed adolescents exposed to an excessive amount of TV are more likely to have early sexual experiences.
Janet Shibley Hyde, a psychologist at UW-Madison, and Myeshia Price, a graduate student in the department of psychology, tested 273 children at the Society for the Scientific Study of Sexuality meeting in Indiana.
Although the research is not directly related to college students, I believe that dialogue about sexual behaviors is always important because it allows for the topic to be comfortable for discussion, which in turn can increase the possibility of discussing safe-sex practices with partners,"" Price said in an interview.
Although the study showed TV viewing as a main variable for early sexual activity, a number of negative influences increasing in an adolescent's life can lead young people to have sex. Researchers concluded adolescents with symptoms of Attention Deficiet Hyper Disorder, low self-esteem and poor relationships with parents are also susceptible to encounter early sexual activity.
Hyde and Price found early sexual experiences in girls who had poor relationships with parents, low self-esteem, signs of ADHD and underachievement in school.
Price noted there were more similarities between both boys' and girls' low self-esteem correlating with early sex than she and Hyde expected.
""We were surprised that low self-esteem is related to both boys' and girls' initiation into sexual behaviors,"" Price said.
According to Hyde and Price's research, the increased amount of TV exposure in youth can increase sexual activity and thus increase the threat of teen pregnancy, sexually transmitted diseases and infections.
""There are many things that researchers have found to be related to early sexual behaviors and [we wanted] to determine if these are small or large effects based on the previous research in the field."" Price said.
