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Choose a Girl

Nearly 100% of teens report having access to a smartphone or home computer, and nearly half of teens report that they are online “almost constantly”. Sixty percent of teens report using computers to do their homework every day. But it’s important to remember that the measure of average time includes multi-tasking time, and teens aren’t necessarily spending that long looking at a screen.

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• They may obsessively watch their device, hide it when a parent walks by, withdraw from friends and family, and/or become upset after being online or when asked to get offline.
• The proliferation of sexual images also undermines a girl’s confidence in her own body.
• Ask before you post about your teen online; no matter how proud you are of them, they have a right to control how their image and information is shared online, even by their parents.
• “As maternal TV instruction served as a protective factor for sexualization, it’s possible that higher media usage simply allowed for more instruction,” Starr said to Live Science.

They felt it was safer sex, which is true and not true, because the rates of STDs have actually shot up among teenagers, even though the rates of intercourse have not, because they think that oral sex is safer sex and things like gonorrhea are spreading much more quickly. Our culture tries to convince our daughters that they amount to nothing more than the sum of their parts. Only by addressing this lie head-on will we equip our children with the truth.

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Media consumption alone didn’t influence girls to prefer the sexy doll. But girls who watched a lot of TV and movies and who had mothers who reported self-objectifying tendencies, such as worrying about their clothes and appearance many times a day, in the study were more likely to say the sexy doll was popular. While it would be impossible to shield children from every damaging influence, we can certainly take a stand against the worst offenders. And we can inoculate our kids against the world’s counterfeit sexuality by talking to them about God’s good plan for men and women. The American Psychological Association (APA) warns that this sexualization of girls is harmful to their self-image and healthy development.

“On the heels of 20th century criticism of the anatomically questionable Barbie doll came the 21st century Bratz doll-an adolescent-figured doll modeling sexy clothing and make-up on huge eyes and plump lips,” researchers wrote. “Despite the ubiquity of these sexualizing messages targeted towards young girls, it is surprising that there remains a dearth of scientific knowledge on early sexualization, including self-sexualization.” Apps that allow parental restrictions on a minor child’s phone are common, but Common Sense Media’s recent research found that parental control apps sent the most notifications during school hours, sending a median of almost 30 notifications during the school day! Also, many teens report that their own management techniques, like turning on do not disturb or carefully curating which apps they will get notifications from, was often more helpful than parental restrictions, which some respondents felt like they were more likely to go against than their own tactics. Although many children are using social media before they turn 13, that is the “official” age where most social media platforms allow users to create their own profiles.

Parents, educators and other influential adults should have regular conversations about the implications of online behavior with teens and young adults, Daniels suggested. As they begin to navigate the online world more independently, teens will be making important decisions every day. Enabling their ability to address problems and make decisions on their own will support your teen’s long-term positive life outcomes.

More research is also needed, she said, on the consequences of sexualization on young girls’ health, well-being and identity, and whether young girls who objectify themselves also act out these sexual behaviors. Sexualized depictions of girls and women are prevalent in nearly all forms of mainstream media, including magazines, video games, music videos, television shows, and movies. A 2017 study published in Pediatrics reported that sexually objectifying portrayals of women appear in 52% of all magazine advertisements and 59% of music videos. However, girls who didn’t consume a lot of media but who had religious mothers were much more likely to say they wanted to look like the sexy doll. “This pattern of results may reflect a case of ‘forbidden fruit’ or reactance, whereby young girls who are overprotected from the perceived ills of media by highly religious parents … begin to idealize the forbidden due to their underexposure,” the authors wrote.