NOT THE SHARPEST KNIFE IN THE DRAWER: Don’t Touch That Dial
Washington Post TV critic Lisa de Moraes does a great job skewering a poorly-designed study yielding questionable results. In this case, researchers at Children's Hospital in
[I]f children watched 2.37 hours of "adult-themed" programming over the course of two days, they were 33 percent less likely to have had sex in their teens than if they watched 3.37 hours, and 66 percent less likely to have had sex in their teens than if they watched 4.37 hours. Which would seem to suggest a diet of 2.37 hours of adult-themed programming per 48 hours is some kind of promiscuity vaccine - a bit of the bad stuff inoculates you against the scourge. …
Delgado said researchers looked only at two days' worth of TV and movie viewing because of financial constraints. They also did not look at whether the episodes of the shows watched did in fact contain adult material.
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