LOS ANGELES (BP) – A plurality of adolescents think sex and romance are overused in television shows and would like to see more platonic friendships portrayed, an annual University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA) study of 10- to 24-year-olds found.
Particularly, 47.5 percent of adolescents ages 13-24 think sex is unnecessary for most television plots, 44.3 percent think romance is overused in media, and 51.5 percent want to see more content focused on friendships and platonic relationships, UCLA found in its 2023 Teens and Screens Report released in October.
The numbers should signal Hollywood to stop marketing “explicit sexual content to teens,” the Parents Television Council (PTC) said in response to the findings.
“These survey results prove that teens are tired of being saturated with sexual content,” PTC Vice President Melissa Henson said in a press release. “It’s time for a new playbook, Hollywood, and it would be a monumental and welcome change.”
Sex and romance ranked 13th among the top 19 storylines teens said they want to view, with hopeful, uplifting content about people beating the odds topping the chart, and stories featuring nonbinary and LGBTQ and related identities at the bottom of the list.
PTC called out Hollywood for such shows as HBO’s “Euphoria,” which spotlights high school students navigating life in a world of drugs, sex, trauma and social media; Disney-owned Hulu’s “PEN15,” a comedy with foul language that features middle school teens exploring topics including sex and drug use; and Netflix’s “Sex Education,” with teenagers exploring sexuality in a way that Movieguide has critiqued as “near pornographic.”
The findings show teenagers want to view a fuller spectrum of relationships, and also support other recent studies showing teens are less driven by sex than were their parents and grandparents, study co-author and UCLA adjunct professor Dr. Yalda T. Uhls said.
“We know that young people are suffering an epidemic of loneliness and they’re seeking modeling in the art they consume,” Uhls said. “While some storytellers use sex and romance as a shortcut to character connection, it’s important for Hollywood to recognize that adolescents want stories that reflect the full spectrum of relationships.”
Quarantines during the COVID-19 pandemic likely contributed to views expressed in the study, the PTC believes.
Teens “were deprived of real-life time to learn about relationships during lockdowns, and now they need to see and understand how all kinds of relationships work, not just portrayals of romantic or solely sexual relationships,” Henson said.
The PTC has long advocated appropriate for children and teens on television, streaming platforms and social media, citing numerous studies that link viewing explicit sexual content to aberrant and harmful behavior in children and teens.
UCLA’s 2023 report, conducted by the Center for Scholars & Storytellers, surveyed 1,500 people ages 10-24 in August, including 100 young people from each participating age bracket, and reflecting 2020 U.S. Census findings in race and gender.
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