Years ago, I knew a teen-age girl who was always talking about how great it would be to have a baby to love. After she had to babysit for her infant step-sister, she started saying she wanted to wait until she was older to have a child.http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/01/140109132533.htm
Jan. 9, 2014 — The creator of MTV's "16 and Pregnant" and "Teen Mom" said the shows have been called "one of the best public service campaigns to prevent teen pregnancy." A new Indiana University research study finds the opposite to be true.
The paper accepted for publication in the journal Mass Communication and Society presents findings that such teen mom shows actually lead heavy viewers to believe that teen mothers have an enviable quality of life, a high income and involved fathers.
Teens who perceived reality television as realistic were most likely to hold these perceptions.
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"Heavy viewers of teen mom reality programs were more likely to think that teen moms have a lot of time to themselves, can easily find child care so that they can go to work or school and can complete high school than were lighter viewers of such shows," Martins and Jensen wrote.
Frequent viewers of the programs also were more likely to believe that teen moms have affordable access to health care, finished college and lived on their own.
"Our data call into question the content of teen mom reality programming," they added. "Heavy viewing of teen mom reality programming positively predicted unrealistic perceptions of what it is like to be a teen mother."
""While it would be inappropriate to suggest that viewing these programs is the cause of teen pregnancy, one might consider it a contributing factor."Professor Nicole Martins
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