Pop Culture Sex Ed: What Media Teaches Kids About Sexual Health

[Frank W. Baker]

With the explosion of the internet, it's easy to overlook the influence of other popular culture channels, but it's clear they still matter. Television continues to be the most common medium and platform for viewing content -- a Kaiser Family Foundation study found that TV makes up the largest chunk of adolescents' media use, 4.5 hours out of a total 11 hours media time each day. The other 6.5 hours are spent on the internet. In order for sexuality and sexual health education to be effective in reaching youth in the digital age, professionals need to partner with traditional pop entertainment outlets, and also promote their programs using social media -- frequent messages on Twitter, Facebook status updates and anonymous message boards for fans. After surveying thousands of youth nationwide for our newly released white paper TECHsex USA, we found that the most potentially effective sex ed programs are a mashup of pop culture, TV, social media, friends, family, mobile technology and experts.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/deb-levine/sex-ed_b_859192.html