Society and its impact on teen pregnancy

Cierra Pullen

Ms. Mckoy

English 2- 4^th

           On television (TV), which remains the predominant medium in terms of time spent for all young Teenagers, we are supposed to have fun, live our lives to the fullest. We are supposed to be kids growing into adults, but for some they want to grow up a little to fast. Pregnancy has become the “new thing” as some people say especially since the increase in teen birth rates from 2006. As teenagers we think about doing what we want and live how we want to live. To be free to make mistakes, and learn from them, but some of those mistakes might last a lifetime. Not only would it last you a lifetime you would be giving birth to a real person. You will no longer be able to think about just you and what you want. You now have another person on your shoulders for the next 18 years. Teenagers think that teen pregnancy could never happen to them. Well their wrong, it happens all the time. When you have a kid everything changes and regret starts to kick in. not only do you deal with the pressures of having a kid but you have people judging you all the time. You can go anywhere and see teen moms; you can also be sitting at a party and what to be part of “society.” Well is society really important to you? To some girls, it is everything.

Teenage pregnancy has been around since before we can imagine. There have been times where teenage pregnancy boosted like crazy. For example, in the 1900’s that was when the teenage pregnancy rates were up to their second highest point. In 2006 that all changed there was a boost even higher than in the 1900’s that shocked America. Yet still today the United States still has the highest teenage pregnancy out of many countries. In the chart I choose for my blog we were at 45.7 Japan was not even at 10 percent. This also might have to do with something so simple. Television shows. 16 and pregnant started in 2009 and became one of the most watched shows in America. Today we have 2.1 million viewers.   

The article, The Adolescent Brain: Learning, Reasoning, and Decision Making it states that “75 percent of prime-time television shows contain sexual content, yet only 14 percent of them mention any risks or responsibilities of sexual activity.” This proves that the television shows that not only adolescents are watching but kids too contain sexual content and does not list any or even think about mentioning the consequences.

According to the journal, The Adolescent Brain: Learning, Reasoning, and Decision Making it says that the media makes sex seem like a harmless sport. The results have indicated that the media does have a major effect on young people’s attitudes and behaviors. They did a study in 2010 on 11-17 year old girls and only the 11 year olds reported that they did not feel pressure from the media. Which means that all the other girls they interviewed did feel pressured.  This can also prove that some of the other girls feel pressured to do these things and some of them are too young to even think about what could really happen to them if they did not take precaution

In the article pediatrics which is mostly about a national survey and how watching the media can influence pregnancy. In their survey the teens that were exposed to high levels of sexual content were twice as likely to get pregnant within the next 3 years, instead of the others who lower levels of exposure. I feel like this is very useful because it was a reliable survey and it stated that the girls who were experienced to more media had a higher risk of getting pregnant. That proves my hypothesis right there.

Teenage pregnancy is such a widespread issue but more importantly the media could be influencing the majority of it. What I don’t understand is if teen pregnancy costs the United States 9 billion dollars why won’t they take some of the show or television programs out? I feel like teenage pregnancy rates would go way down if the government would step in and give our society a reality check.