Content of teen lit called into question
Books don't come with R-ratings like movies, or M-ratings like video games. But 55 percent of teen books contain sexual content ranging from passionate kissing to sexual intercourse, according to a new BYU study.
The study, published online in the Journal of Sex Research, shows that books aimed towards early teen audiences contain sexual content, both implicitly and explicitly referenced, according to Fox News.
"The goal is not to censor books or discourage reading," BYU researcher Sarah Coyne told Yahoo News. "However, parents should be aware that you can't always judge a teen book by its cover. In some cases the content of a book aimed at a 12-year-old would earn it an R-rating if it were a movie."
While many of the books the study looked at contained age appropriate content, the majority contained sexual content, without also incorporating other important factors of sexual behaviors, including the use of contraceptives, the implementation of consequences and the occurrence of sex in a committed relationship, Coyne told Fox News
.
"Most of it was pretty mild," Coyne told the Deseret News, but "it's something to take note of. There's no indication anywhere what the content is going to be."
Kids between the ages of eight and 18 spend around 25 minutes a day reading for pleasure, according to an article about this study on Yahoo News. And because of the material teens may potentially be exposed to in those 25 minutes, Coyne encourages parents to be involved in their children's reading selections, while still encouraging reading.
"Just be aware," Coyne said. "If parents have an open dialogue between them and their child, they can talk about things that come up and dig a little deeper."
Exposure to excessive amounts of sexual content at a young age increases the risk of becoming sexually active sooner, before a teen is ready, according to Live Science.
"The media aren't the best sex educators," said Jane Brown, a professor at University of North Carolina in the article posted on Live Science. "The media tend to leave out the crucial three C's: commitment, contraception and consequences."
But, Brown, the leading researcher in a similar study, also said that the media, including teen books, will continue to be a source for teens to look to, to understand and emulate sexual behaviors.
Brown's study reveals that white teens exposed to entertainment media with high sexual content were "more than two times as likely to have sex by the time they were 16 years old than those who used less," a standard not patterned in black teens.
According to Live Science, the research has shown the importance of guidance from parents, teachers and even the media to help teens make positive sexual decisions.
"Otherwise," Brown told Live Science, "the media will continue to serve as a kind of sexual super peer that doesn't have the best interests of young people in mind."
Coyne said no one has ever really researched the effects of a book's content on readers, but it's something that needs to be done. That's why her team at BYU began their study.
"I study the media, and my favorite type is books," she said. "Often I'll be reading and something will come up that's kind of unexpected."
Coyne has three young children; her oldest is six years old. She plans to be as careful as she can with the books her children read, while not censoring or discouraging it.So in 2008, they decided to find out what was going on in adolescent literature. Books are never really included in media research because they are held to a higher standard and society puts books on a pedestal, Coyne said. But it's time for the research industry and parents to start paying attention.
"Knowledge is empowerment," Coyne said. "We just need to know as parents what's going on."
=================================================
deseretnews.com/article/700149862/Content-of-teen-lit-called-into-quest
No comments:
Post a Comment