Teens and iPods

Mark Daniels points us to an article regarding teenage sexual behavior and their choice of music on their iPods:

Teens whose iPods are full of music with raunchy, sexual lyrics start having sex sooner than those who prefer other songs, a study found.

Whether it's hip-hop, rap, pop, or rock, much of popular music aimed at teens contains sexual overtones. Its influence on their behavior appears to depend on how the sex is portrayed, researchers found.

Songs depicting men as ``sex-driven studs" and women as sex objects, and which have explicit references to sex acts, are likelier to trigger early sexual behavior than those in which sexual references are more veiled and relationships appear more committed, the study found.

Teens who said they listened to lots of music with degrading sexual messages were almost twice as likely to start having intercourse or other sexual activities within the next two years, compared with teens who listened to little or no sexually degrading music.

I count my blessings every day in this regard. Both my kids have iPods, and both of them detest Rap and Hip-Hop music. My daughter has hours of classical music on hers, and my son's is full of jazz, big band, and the Tijuana Brass (my favorite music when I was his age and playing trumpet in the band). Most of the stuff they listen to doesn't have any lyrics at all, let alone the kind of lyrics mentioned in the article above.

Mark has some suggestions about what we can all do about this is his post.