Thanks for posting even if reluctantly. Personally, I don't see why it is so odd that a causative relationship should exist. Visual images are powerful precisely because they engage the viewer in a near participatory fashion. You empathize with characters in movies and television programs when they are done well because you feel as though you have experienced what the character has experienced. Why wouldn't sexual images or violent ones for that matter engage the viewers similarly and affect their behavior?

Obviously not every person is affected to the same degree, but it is the cumulative effects that such a study captures.

The study results don't surprise me either.

I'll indulge in a cheap shot here: I always find it amusing when social conservatives go off about the coarsening of popular culture, when their slavish devotion to "market uber alles" and opposition to adequate funding for school music programs (for example) has helped create the problem.

Funny that this post would appear right alongside an ad for Sex and the City.

Well, it's funny now that SitC plays on TBS, which collects money from advertisers on the theory that viewers' behavior is affected by what they see on the tube. The folks at HBO can still dismiss any connection without looking inconsistent.

I dont buy the causal relationship. Teens that dont watch much/any TV probably have a host of tendencies that differ from 'normal' teens. Normal teens watch tv, normal teens are interested in sex, that seems a more likely way to look at the numbers.

I'm afraid this study will in fact be dismissed easily. That's because most of the media and nearly all of the entertainment industry believe Sex Is Good, at all times and in nearly all circumstances.

There are only three exceptions. One is rape. Another is unwanted pregnancy. And the third is the transmission of STDs; actually, it's transmission of AIDS, with other, treatable STDs not being considered that big a deal. The important thing is none of the exceptions invalidate the rule. You use protection to avoid pregnancies and STDs; you don't rape a woman who says no, but if she says yes it's always time to party.

This isn't just a question of private attitudes; many large companies have a direct financial stake in Sex Is Good programming. Obviously this could not happen if large numbers of Americans did not approve the ethos behind the programming. So uncomfortable as it may make some Americans -- the religious, many parents (especially, I would think, parents of girls), a few others -- the RAND study is most likely to be a one week story, that may be raised in future by some killjoy politician like Joe Lieberman to justify a sense of Congress resolution or some such ineffectual measure but that otherwise will have no consequences whatever.

It has always been clear to me that what is watched influences behavior - and it isn't limited to just sex, or just for children - it applies to violence, and other social ills.

Check out this article about Bhutan:

Fast Forward into Trouble

The Bhutan article is also sobering for the effect that is shown on adults.

For the most part tv news on tv is so filled with the "if it bleeds it leads" sensationalism, and warped with fear, I think it contributes to the overheated dialogue in the country.

Clearly, both in Canada and the UK, the level of political discussion seems a lot more civil, in my opinion.

The regulatory mechanism here should be - what, if any?

Freedom of speech and expression in this country is such a high and necessary value, that at what point should the "negative effects" of media, be written off as the "freedom is sometimes untidy" fatalism of Rumsfeld (this particular snark really shouldn't be here - sorry, I can't resist ), or at what point do we decide that this is a form of yelling "fire" in a crowded theater? Or a form of "pollution" such as cigarettes, in a public place?

So, free marketeers? I've written about this before here, but if you believe absolutely in "free markets", where should the line be?

I don't believe there is really such a thing as a free market - there are always "appropriate regulatory structures", that either contribute to innovation, creativity, balance, a fair playing field, or "inappropriate regulatory structures', that fail by either favoring the wealthy/big business over small business, destroy innovation by placing an undue burden regarding taxes/paperwork, or by allowing single company domination. But there is ALWAYS a regulatory structure.

Ah democracy. All I can say is I dont want everything I watch on TV to be dumbed down to 3rd grade levels (or whatever) and most Americans agree with that. The problem here isnt with the networks, its with parents who dont bother to use the veto stamp on their kids TV habits. If you are worried about your kids morals maybe watching tv with them is a good idea. Plenty of those parents simply want to make it my (and every other viewers) problem instead of their own.

And I really dont want to hear about how hard it is. Digging ditches to put shoes on your kids is hard. Unplugging the tv in your kids room is not. If you arent up for a tough road dont have kids.

Just looking at the overview and some of the methodology, I'm not sure you can say about causality.

The connection they found was between watching TV with sexual content and starting to have sex, not just watching TV. Presumably kids who don't watch TV vary in when they start having sex, they aren't weird in just one direction. Kids who watch a *lot* of TV are less likely to have sex in the next year; presumably they're too busy watching TV to meet potential sex partners.

Is it that kids who aren't going to have sex within the next year tend to search out TV programs that aren't about sex? Or do they all watch things at random and the ones who watch the most sex-related stuff have sex earlier? I don't see that they did or could distinguish between those, short of deciding for the kids what TV they would watch and seeing what happened.

"I don't believe there is really such a thing as a free market - there are always "appropriate regulatory structures", that either contribute to innovation, creativity, balance, a fair playing field, or "inappropriate regulatory structures', "

Totally agreed. But those structures should not be meant to influence outcome (which they end up being terrible at anyway), they are meant to ensure a fair playing field.
Broadcast is a unique beast because traditionally the airwaves have been a limited supply do to simply physics. If you can only have a few networks, the government can make an argument towards a compelling interest in the programming of those networks because they are so few. Cable and the internet changes all that. Its a true step forward for freedom and democracy in a particular way, and of course some (many) will indulge in their personal naughtiness with that freedom (freedom, whiskey, sex!) as has always been. With all the choices out there, the compelling government interest argument goes away and the 'effect on society' argument rears its ugly head. The danger of this argument is that it is utterly unlimited in its scope. See the Taliban for worst case.
Again this all breaks on personal responsibility. Is it HBO, and hence the viewers, responsibility to keep your kid from watching soft porn at 2am? Or is it the parents?

Way too many variable factors for this study to show a causal link.

Are those who watch a lot of sexual material on TV also more likely to have parents who don't give a damn about what they do? If so, is the problem with the TV shows or with the negligent parents?

American business spends hundreds of millions every year on television advertising. Clearly they are convinced that the ads influence behavior. How could anyone believe that this effect is narrowly restricted to the commercials only, and does not also apply to the programs within which they are contained?

Question: does it matter at all HOW or between whom the sex was portrayed?

As Dave Chappell has joked, if you want to turn teenagers off of sex, make them watch the two ugliest/oldest teachers have it in front of them.

Come to think of it, maybe this explains the anomalous behavior of black teens--maybe watching all those white people kissing (badly? who knows) killed their libido.

On a related theme, I think one of the most "out there" provocative shows of the past few years is FX's "Nip/tuck." Man, are those people SKANKY! But here's the thing, there's a pretty strong moral undercurrent there as well. Sex may be a drug to some of these characters, but it also turns their lives upside down and makes them miserable. Hardly your Carrie Bradshaw style happy hos.

My question is so what? The study is more likely to be showing correlation. But if we started teaching these kids responsibility instead of coddling them and protecting them, they'd be more likely to make better decisions in the first place. And if they had sex in the context of those decisions, well, that should be their choice.

Did the study also look at kids reading blogs with lots of pictures of half-naked Salma Hayek? Just asking... :-)

I'd have to concur that the result isn't surprising, but its definitely good to have a study to confirm it. But don't we already have the solution for this problem, i.e. the V-Chip?

I'm pretty much a slighty left-leaning libertarian, but what pissed me off about the V-Chip debate were all the over-blown worries about censorship, which obviously didn't come to pass. A few days ago, Drezner posted something by Baghdad brooks, that I momstly agreed with -- which was a very distrubing experience for me (agreeing with Brooks). The 21st century notion of libertarianism is about distributed, decentrialized, weighted decision making, by those who are actually effected. It shouldn't be some silly objectivist nonsense.

We already have our solution then, parents who care, should use the V-Chip to filter. Perhaps the arting system should become more fine-grained (I've never used it, so I don't know).

The conclusion in the abstract I think hits the right note

Conclusions. Watching sex on TV predicts and may hasten adolescent sexual initiation. Reducing the amount of sexual content in entertainment programming, reducing adolescent exposure to this content, or increasing references to and depictions of possible negative consequences of sexual activity could appreciably delay the initiation of coital and noncoital activities. Alternatively, parents may be able to reduce the effects of sexual content by watching TV with their teenaged children and discussing their own beliefs about sex and the behaviors portrayed. Pediatricians should encourage these family discussions.

MB - I'll take that one further...

If I unplug my TV, my kids are going to find another one elsewhere. They're naturally curious (dammit). I can't completely shield them from sexually suggestive programming. It's not hard to find, and we don't even have cable.

So I discuss these shows with them, including it's (worthless) merits, its comparison to proper behavior, and even the marketing angle. They're only 10 & 11, but they usually get it, and chose more appropriate programs (well, at least in my presence). I don't want them to be embarrassed or confused by the subject, otherwise I've lost my opportunity to control the message.

Amen wish. And I think that is most parents attitude. I believe the puritanical streak comes from a combination of the few negligent parents stirred up by the political minded with an authoritarian streak, right and left depending on the specific cause.

If it takes a village to raise a child, I dont want to live in that village.

Do we know what the study considered "sexual" programs? I missed it if it did.

The control variables don't solve the problem of selection bias in the slightest. In fact, controlling for variables that are involved in the selection process will only further bias estimates (see Achen's "The Statistical Analysis of Quasi-Experiments" Chapter 2, 1986).

There is also a problem of whether the measured variables can really capture the underlying latent traits. Is interest in sex really captured by the variables? How about the quality of parenting? There is no way that the subtle aspects of parenthood can be summed up with a few survey questions. In short, the RAND Corporation may have just uncovered a correlation between TV viewership and sexual activity that is caused by the same underlying problem, that is, bad parenting.

They might also have uncovered a causal relationship. But with the study as it is currently designed, it is impossible to know how much of the "2 times more likely" is due to causation and how much is due to selection bias.

Not too surprising. I'd imagine the violence and drugs have an effect as well. Humans are very social creatures, and it seems to me that television can give the viewer the illusion of peer activity.

Zathras: I'm afraid this study will in fact be dismissed easily. That's because most of the media and nearly all of the entertainment industry believe Sex Is Good, at all times and in nearly all circumstances.

I don't think they believe "Sex Is Good" so much as they've learned from experience that "Sex Sells." And I wouldn't be surprised if the reason sex sells so well is that our culture is so sexually repressed that people flock to outlets where they can consume sexual material away from the judgment of society. But somehow, I suspect that won't be how most people spin this study. :)

I've got to say we rarely watch network TV in my home since my two girls (12 and 13) are still mostly happy with Fox Family and Disney, although MTV is making its way -- as much as I allow it -- onto the scene.

But, for those saying it's all the parents' faults and we should just exercise more control, I say, it just ain't that easy. The content is pervasive -- and I really am pissed that I sound more and more like Tipper Gore.

The main reason we so rarely watch network TV is every time my kids put on some sitcom, I almost always shut it off because of my totally gratuitous sex reference offered for the cheap laughs it gets. The last two we tried were the 70s Show and Hollywood Squares. Jeez!

And my kids will never have TVs in their bedrooms -- that's one method of control.

There is sex on American TV? Did I miss something? :-)

Seriously, American TV might already qualify for the Most Prudish TV in the Civilized World Award (if such an award existed), so I'm a little amused by this study and the discussion here.

In spite of the ban on nudity and cuss words on broadcast TV in America, the US has BY FAR the highest teen pregnancy/birth rate in the civilized World: http://www.unicef-icdc.org/publications/pdf/repcard3e.pdf

Some European countries have no problems with showing nudity in morning and afternoon programs, and yet their teen pregnancy/birth rates are WAY LOWER than in the US. In fact, the only Western European country that has even more than half the US's rate is the UK which is possibly the most prudish among the Western European countries in terms of what is allowed on TV (with the possible exception of Ireland - but I've never watched Irish TV).

So maybe there should be more sex on TV? Maybe the ridiculous ban on nudity should be lifted? Maybe US teenagers are so eager to find out what they CANNOT see on US TV?

Make that some totally gratuitous sex reference. My gratuitous sex references are rarely broadcast on national TV.
Sorry.

I might suggest a PBS program from "Frontline" called "The Merchants of Cool." You can watch the whole thing online. It's pretty obvious that kids pick up a lot of what they do from peer pressure and the advertising industry (and fashion and entertainment by extension) prey on that connection. Witness the trend in teen's clothing. The exposed belly. Or the tattoo in the small of the back. Millions of teens didn't just wake up one day and independently come to the decision that they would start wearing shirts with "Porn Star" on them.

Mark Buehner dismisses this with a wave of the hand saying "you should be better parents," but the fact is our children live in a culture that often separates kids from parents at school, after school, etc. Seen the movie "Thirteen," Mark?

It's easy to say it's a "puritanical streak" and be done, but what does it say about our society when almost every show on television deals with sexuality? The music that is marketed to teens (hip hop and rage rock, to name a couple of examples) is all about the latest exploits of the singer "in the club"?

thankfully, my kids aren't yet old enough to watch those kinds of shows, or listen to that kind of music (it's more like sesame street, for now), but I shudder to think how low our standards will be by the time they get to high school.

If that makes me a prude, then so be it.

gw,

You are so right--tv is much more salacious in Europe AND Europeans have a much lower teen pregnancy rate than the US.

In fact, 20 and 30 something European pregnancy rates are WAY lower as well. Correlation or effect?

Watch more, do less. More sex on tv, please.

And by the way, MB, I'm voting you out of the village:) No offense, it's just that my kids can do without neighbors like you.

Tolerant village you've got there Kelli.

I'm lazy: I didn't read the study, so I don't know how many confounding factors it acknowledged.

But one thing I've heard elsewhere is that kids are reaching sexual maturity lots earlier than they ever have before, due at least in part to the chemically-soaked environment we live in. Pseudo-estrogens, particularly, are alleged to be a culprit in hastening puberty, with girls beginning to menstruate as young as 8.

Here's a news flash: Sex is a powerful drive. When the sex drive first really kicks in, sex is all you can think about. I remember my adolescence very clearly, thank you.

Teenagers aren't known for their cool-headed judgment on matters sexual. It isn't just hormones: the adolescent brain is still developing, functionally and structurally.

So if early-puberty means the sex drive "really kicks in" at 10 or younger, it's doing so in a person who's brain isn't even as developed as an adolescent's.

That's a pretty good formula for all hell breaking loose, regardless of how much TV one watches.

Most of us can see the difference in the society and the effects of the media on the kids (if have been around people much). Most want the garbage language,
violence, and what we used to consider pornographic garbage screened out (or ability to choose and pay for only selected networks which we can rely on to screen out the garbage that crosses the line(s) for us.

Is there any possibility that the Rand Corp just found what it was looking for?

Mark B

When you add in teachers, grandparents, siblings, babysitters, cousins, friends, parents of friends, pediatricians, etc., it most certainly does take a village to raise a child.

But it doesn't take a state agency.

To Bryan's point:

I find it amusing when anti-homeschooling prudes (the state knows how to teach your kids!) tell us that homeschooling is bad because school is really about socialization. For one thing, they've just admitted that the debate isn't about the quality of the education.

But it's precisely that socialization -- porn star T-shirts, the Diva role models, the gangster rap, the pre-teen sex -- that I DON'T want my kids socialized to as a norm.

So tell me again why the state should prohibit homeschooling?

Hard-ass control over TV access can result in a rebellious search for 'unpermitted' access. But with basketball, soccer, piano, clarinet, girl scouts, drama, etc. - we find activity as one of the more successful controls over TV time.

"Seriously, American TV might already qualify for the Most Prudish TV in the Civilized World Award (if such an award existed), so I'm a little amused by this study and the discussion here."

The last time I was in the US I watched a lot of TV and I have to agree with you there. But that only applies to the main networks, if you get cable its a whole new game.

Does anybody know how many households in the US are linked to cable, and how many of those houses recieve the programmes with the type of sexual content mentioned in the study.

CaseyL,

It is indeed true that kids are hitting puberty at youger ages. And their environment is indeed chemically-saturated. But from what I've read, the relevant chemicals aren't pseudo-estrogens. They are fats, proteins, and carbohydrates.

Humans evolved in times of privation. Nowadays, after our bodies have gone ten years without ever going hungry (and having put on some extra pounds that would allow us to ride out the next naturally-occurring famine), they say, "We can afford a child; time to keep the species going; release the puberty hounds."

"Mark Buehner dismisses this with a wave of the hand saying "you should be better parents," but the fact is our children live in a culture that often separates kids from parents at school, after school, etc. Seen the movie "Thirteen," Mark?"

I dismiss it with a wave of 'be a parent for gods sake.' Yes i've seen 13, and its a great movie. Common denominator? No father. No question that single parent households are a major factor in this equation.
Lets seperate what is hard with whats impossible. Can parents monitor kids 24/7? No, but they can certainly assure they are supervised to exacting standards. But again, its hard to say 'no, you cant go to Johnnys house because I dont know his parents well enough'. Dont like the permisiveness of public school? Private school, catholic school, home school. Too expensive? Maybe skip the 2nd car, get an apartment instead of a house, no vacation this year. Harsh? Sure. But you made that choice when you had kids. 30 years ago these kinds of decisions were no brainers. Now they are taboo to even discuss. God forbid asking one parent to give up a second income to stay home with the kid. Instead lets toss records out of stores, sacrinize television, and hand the internet over to the government.

"And by the way, MB, I'm voting you out of the village:) No offense, it's just that my kids can do without neighbors like you."

I'd imagine. I'm a bit old school, i grew up in a neighborhood where any parent on the block was lible to grab you by the ear and drag you home. These days thered be a lawyer waiting.

And I do object to all this sex on the television. I keep falling off.

But that only applies to the main networks, if you get cable its a whole new game.

Not really. Only on so-called "premium cable", i.e. on HBO and (other) movie channels is nudity shown. And even the occasional soft porn that's on there after midnight doesn't really measure up to what's being shown in many European countries on public broadcast television after 10 or 11 pm.

TBS (I think) is now showing HBO's "Sex and the City" in a censured version with all the nude scenes and all the forbidden words removed.

Now, the study makes a single reference to "premium cable channels", without elaborating. It mentions a bunch of broadcast stations explicitly (all of which don't show nudity at all), but it doesn't say what the premium cable channels are. HBO, by far the biggest premium channel, has around 27 million subscribers (according to http://www.broadcastingcable.com/index.asp?layout=articlePrint&articleID=CA380315), and I would bet a rather large number of those are childless households. So only a relatively small percentage of teenagers (20-30 % at best) even has access to premium channels. It is quite odd that the study does not mention whether those teenagers with access to premium cable are in any way adversely affected. It would seem like a great way to prove their point if that were so. So either the study's authors are clueless, or there wasn't enough data, or the data showed quite the opposite, i.e. that teenagers with access to premium cable actually are less likely to have sex.

I wonder about the effect of exposure to simplistic soundbites, idiotic 'talking points', and Fox News-quality memes in general. Now, that's worrisome. A generation of Americans growing up in a culture saturated with catchy one-liners, a culture that rewards antagonism and which reifies the abundant symbolic pieties of politics as marketing.

"I wonder about the effect of exposure to simplistic soundbites, idiotic 'talking points', and Fox News-quality memes in general. Now, that's worrisome."

Rofl. Yeh 60 minutes and 20/20 didnt pioneer that years ago. But I guess Dan Rather wouldnt be caught dead, say interviewing an anti-Bush guy about his NG service with huge holes in his story (like say the fact that he didnt hold the office he claims he did at the time of Bush's entrance) or of course mentioning the guy was run out of office due to embezlement scandals and is now a part of Kerrys campaign team. Fair and balanced right? I guess we need more sources like the AP who report republicans crowds booing at Clinton in the hospital when it never happened.

Total non-sequitor: Why does Drudge have such a hard-on for hurricanes?

future headline:

***HURRICANE MATT BEARS DOWN ON FLORIDA***
only 1200 miles out to sea and closing!

---
-London destroyed by suitcase nuke

Ihaven't read the story yet but I see that the cover of this week's NEWSWEEK (September 13) is, "How to Say, 'NO' to Your Kids: Setting Limits in an Age of Excess."

Mark,

Little does it matter whether the simplistic babble comes from Fox News or CBS. Changes to the media culture in the US have taken place, even if the most significant one is the advent of the 24 hour news networks, with their unthinking sensationalism and their obsession to have talking heads discuss everything--from topics in which they have no expertise whatsoever, to the pettiest and silliest of news. The opinionated moron--be it Bill O'Reilly, Sean Hannity, or Chris Matthews--is an icon of American News TV. It is only reasonable to suspect that these people and their idiocy have more of an effect now than they have ever had--if not because they are more idiotic now than they were before, because they are all over the place today, and because their idiocy is repeated ad nauseam with utmost indignation. (An indignation that bears little resemblance with the idea of the responsible journalist or newscaster.)

Pedro: None of those three are newsmen; they're commentators or pundits.

The fact that some of them are on the Fox News network does not make them newsmen, any more than Barbara Walters is.

(And why restrict yourself to the US? Doesn't the rest of the world have opinionated morons or cliched soundbite news? Or at very least news with unquestioned, unquestionable biases? From the examples found on the InterWeb, it sure looks like they do, too.)

"And why restrict yourself to the US? Doesn't the rest of the world have opinionated morons or cliched soundbite news?"

I simply quote myself in answer: "if not because they are more idiotic now than they were before, because they are all over the place today, and because their idiocy is repeated ad nauseam with utmost indignation."

As far as I am aware, no other public in the world is subject to the continuous stream of punditry-disguised-as-journalism that populates cable news networks.

"As far as I am aware, no other public in the world is subject to the continuous stream of punditry-disguised-as-journalism that populates cable news networks."

rofl. Try the British papers just as a start, they invented it. Then move on the the BBC, hike on over to APF, and finish off with the grandaddy of them Al Jazeera.

As someone who was a teenager less than two months ago, I'm just going to go out on a limb here and say that maybe the teens who aren't watching sex on TV don't have sex drives yet? I mean, there are some twelve-year-olds that are more sexually mature than some fourteen-year-olds; had I been the RAND corporation, I would have controlled for both age and relative development (for females "age at menarche" would have been a decent marker) in comparing the TV and sexual habits.

Kids will be exposed to all kinds of things. Most parents roll their eyes at the harmless ones (Power Rangers? Please.) and open a can of whup-ass on the more serious ones (Bow-and-arrow? Are you high? Give me that.) You can't control what your kids are exposed to, only what you allow them to do with that. And you can control *that* with decreasing effectiveness over the years, so you'd better lay a good foundation.

That said, television promotes an unhealthy obsession with sex (i.e., Britney), without promoting a healthy obsession with sex (i.e., doin' it for the enjoyment of all involved). Sick, if you ask me.

But it's hard to see where using this study to censor sex will get anywhere without also applying it to violence, and you can take violence off of TV when you can pry the remote from most Americans' cold, dead, glassy-eyed fingers.

So I'm not going to worry.

Mark,

your a priori dismissiviness of the claim that TV influences Americans more than it does Europeans is very amusing, especially because it goes against the well known fact that Americans watch substantially more TV than any other people on Earth.

Besides, it is not "bias" that I worry about, though from my perspective it is America as a whole that is tilted right. A certain degree of bias is entirely unavoidable in journalism. But I am not willing to condone the continuous assassination of the most elementary aspects of logic--the cult of ad hominem, ad verecundiam, etc.--simply because bias is unavoidable. Bias is not counterbalanced by providing the public with the ever more strident 'other side'. Balance is not achieved by insulting the intelligence of the public at large.

Pedro,

the well known fact that Americans watch substantially more TV than any other people on Earth

I hadn't realized that. Is there someplace I could go for further information?

"your a priori dismissiviness of the claim that TV influences Americans more than it does Europeans is very amusing, especially because it goes against the well known fact that Americans watch substantially more TV than any other people on Earth."

One would generally present evidence of a claim before demanding that others debunk it.

" Bias is not counterbalanced by providing the public with the ever more strident 'other side'. "

Well, you have the bias thing down except for one key ingredient. You never think your own perspective (and hence those who share it) are biased at all. Just totally reasonable. I have no doubt that the editorialists at the NYT think they are completely mainstream, middle of the roaders. Doubtless so does Rush Limbaugh.
If you dont think America has powerful forces on both sides of the spectrum perhaps you can explain how one of the most powerful media organizations in the world decided to pass off badly forged documents that just happened to impinge GW Bush. We know how it works in America, the little game is that the Networks pretend to be unbiased and we pretend to watch them.

http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2004/03/31/1080544536008.html?from=storyrhs

It seems Japan actually beats the US--it's a bit of a surprise, but then again, I've never been to Japan. Obviously, the distribution of what exactly people watch on TV varies from culture to culture, and changes with time. There's a tiny bit of insight into differences in viewer preferences between Europe and North America in the above journalistic article, but not enough.

These are observations that most people who are cosmopolitan enough would find reasonable:

1. Americans watch more TV than other people (save the Japanese, apparently.)

2. Americans have a far more generous supply of 24 cable news networks and talking heads on the airwaves than other people.

3. The phenomenon of TV barking dogs--Chris Matthews, Bill O'Reilly, Sean Hannity, and other Rush Limbaugh wannabes--is distinctly American in flavor.

If one chooses to dismiss these assertions as unfounded, and prefers to believe in the thesis that all societies have exactly the same media culture, modulo negligible considerations, then it still does not follow that worries about the effects that prolonged exposure to illogic shall have on future generations. It is still the case that TV viewing time is increasing everywhere, and that the supply of sensationalistic soundbites, simplistic nonsense, and confrontational barking, is increasing--and has sharply risen with Cable TV.

"You never think your own perspective (and hence those who share it) are biased at all."

Says who? It is precisely because of the very fact that bias is the condition of any human being embedded in a diverse society, that it is not ideological bias that worries me the most. It is other people who have chosen to preoccupy themselves with the inherent ideological bias of news-makers. I simply pose the question--akin to the one that Fukuyama asked himself when pondering about 'The Last Man'--what kind of citizen is produced by a media culture that increasingly provides us with short, catchy talking points, amateur commentators, and moralistic, indignant pundits. Certainly, such culture does not help my wife's undergraduate students engage in critical thinking.

Pedro,

Thanks for the url. I wish the story had given data for more individual countries. Aside from the USA and Japan, they only report regional results (I tried a quick Google search and couldn't find individual country results. I did find several similar versions of the same story, indicating that the media outlets rewrote a press release.)

FWIW, the Eurodata figures are:

Japan 4 hours 29 minutes per day
USA 4 25
N. America 4 21
World average 3 39
Europe 3 33
Asia-Pacific 3 23
Middle East 3 15
Latin America 3 14
South Africa 2 59

I'm not sure what to make of the figures. When I was growing up (a long time ago), tv watching meant tv watching. Nowadays I find many people don't really pay that much attention. They talk, move around, and do other things while the tv is on. It's similar to--though not as unobtrusive as--the way so many offices have a "soft rock" station on all day.

Pedro,

Thanks for the url. I wish the story had given data for more individual countries. Aside from the USA and Japan, they only report regional results (I tried a quick Google search and couldn't find individual country results. I did find several similar versions of the same story, indicating that the media outlets rewrote a press release.)

FWIW, the Eurodata figures are:

Japan 4 hours 29 minutes per day
USA 4 25
N. America 4 21
World average 3 39
Europe 3 33
Asia-Pacific 3 23
Middle East 3 15
Latin America 3 14
South Africa 2 59

I'm not sure what to make of the figures. When I was growing up (a long time ago), tv watching meant tv watching. Nowadays I find many people don't really pay that much attention. They talk, move around, and do other things while the tv is on. It's similar to--though not as unobtrusive as--the way so many offices have a "soft rock" station on all day.

As a child/adolescent psychiatrist, I'm all for reducing the amount of sexual content on TV, but I often wonder if the larger social issue is a lack of parental supervision. There is a good study in JAMA about the impact that getting families out of poverty had on the amount of parental supervision that could be provided, and secondarily on the amount of behavior problems in children. I have little doubt that the same applies to supervising TV time or sexual activity.
See my post on this at:
http://jamesbakermd.com/2004_08_01_jamesbakermd_archive.html