Exposure of US adolescents to extremely violent movies.

ABSTRACT:

Objective

Despite concerns about exposure to violent media, there are few data on youth exposure to violent movies. In this study we examined such exposure among young US adolescents.

Methods

We used a random-digit-dial survey of 6522 US adolescents aged 10 to 14 years fielded in 2003. Using previously validated methods, we determined the percentage and number of US adolescents who had seen each of 534 recently released movies. We report results for the 40 that were rated R for violence by the Motion Picture Association of America, UK 18 by the British Board of Film Classification and coded for extreme violence by trained content coders.

Results

The 40 violent movies were seen by a median of 12.5% of an estimated 22 million US adolescents aged 10 to 14 years. The most

SUBMITTER: Worth KA 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC2778277 | biostudies-literature | 2008 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature