A new study just released from RAND Corporation has linked teenage pregnancies to exposure to high levels of television viewing. The RAND corporation’s tagline is “Objective Analysis, Effective Solutions”.

I’m sure the folks at the RAND corporation are incredibly honorable and that their tagline is true for most of what they report, but on this one I think there is some sort of ideology being pushed on people or just really bad analysis. Sort of like the argument that video games kill people. Let’s take a look at this report a little closer now.

The report states that

Adolescents who have high levels of exposure to television programs that contain sexual content are twice as likely to be involved in a pregnancy over the following three years as their peers who watch few such shows …

OK, I can see where these folks are coming from, but I also can very quickly debunk this entire idea with some statistics. The good folks at the Canadian Medical Association did all the hard work for me here. Now, looking through this it becomes very clear that the countries with the highest fertility rates are the ones with the lowest gross national income. Hmm, I am guessing the people in these countries probably do not have access to televisions and can not possibly be swayed by them to become pregnant. So basically, I have just proved the complete opposite of what the RAND study concluded. That was easy. Let’s continue.

The study also concludes

RAND researchers found several other factors, in addition to TV viewing, that influenced whether adolescents were likely to experience a pregnancy. Adolescents living in a two-parent household had a lower probability of pregnancy, while girls, African-Americans and those with more problem behaviors such as discipline problems were more likely to experience a pregnancy.

Hmm. Thanks for the info, but you just killed off your entire conclusion. From this statement I could simply say that the reason these people get pregnant is because they came from a broken home or simply because of their race. This research is falling apart pretty quickly. Which reminds me, we need to keep in mind that the sample size was only 2000 and of that only 700 were actually used to come to these conclusions. This sounds worse than the strategy of collecting data for exit polling.

It gets better though. “…future research topics should include whether inconsistent contraceptive use may help to explain the relationship between exposure to sex on television and pregnancy.” You know, if that is not what this study was supposed to be about then I’m going over to LOLCats and get me a “You has failed” and send it to these folks. You would think that people that tout “Objective Analysis” would have thought to ask the people in this study if the shows were the reason that they did not use any form of protection. The truth could simply be that this individuals wanted to get pregnant all along and that the shows had absolutely nothing to do with it except possibly getting them in the mood. Isn’t that why we watch ScinaMax in the first place? I suppose if Sex in The City does it for you, then that is great. Actually at the ages of these kids, it probably does, but I would seriously hope House or Family Guy doesn’t.

That is a lead in to the next point and it seems that my conclusions actually have something to back them up.

Youths who intended to have children early also were more likely to experience a pregnancy.

Uh! You Think!?

Now, I am not all about bashing, but I just had to in the case of this incredibly flawed study. I hope they did not spend a lot of money on it. Actually, it appears that they did not. Maybe it was something they gave to interns from the nearby college to play around with to keep them busy. Either way, there is a very good point that comes out of the study and I think I can be of some assistance in the matter. The study mentions

Broadcasters should be encouraged to include more realistic depictions of sex in scripts and to portray consequences such as pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases.

First of all, I am all for the more realistic part, but I think the second part of that would just ruin the storyline. Well, maybe not. Let’s look at the consequences and if they are all really that bad.

First of all, most of these shows depict the people living in these great high-rise apartments and condos. Well, this is true for the young ones that get pregnant at an early age and are unable to complete there education:

It does not have to stop there though. I’ve never watched Desperate Houswives, but I know they are always cooking up some good stuff and trying to be as sexy as possible. Well, luckily this is no different than the folks that decide to get to the baby making early.

You do not even need to miss out on all the travels that you thought you could not make. Just hitch up the house and head on over to the annual Trailer Trash Bash. It is sure to be a great time for all.

Well, I poked some fun at this study and probably crossed the line at the end, but it was to simply prove a point and hopefully that is what everyone got out of it. This study is just not realistic. It is in the same vain as the “video games cause kids to kill people” ideology. The RAND Corporation has some great studies, this just is not one of them.

References:

RAND Study Is First to Link Viewing of Sexual Content on Television to Subsequent Teen Pregnancy

Fertility rates and gross national incomes per capita