R-rated movies A Big No For Children

By Staff

Friday, March 12, 2010, 16:08

R-rated movies that glamorise violence and crime mislead children under 17 to try alcohol, a new study claims.

The conclusion was derived from a total of 6,255 children survey, every 8 months for two years from 2003 through 2005, to find the relationship between R-rated movies and the probability of alcohol use.

The link was established across different levels of “sensation seeking," which are a tendency to seek out risky experiences.

James D. Sargent, a pediatrician said: "The study found that watching R-rated movies affected the level of sensation seeking among adolescents. It showed that R-rated movies not only contain scenes of alcohol use that prompt adolescents to drink, they also jack up the sensation seeking tendency, which makes adolescents more prone to engage in all sorts of risky behaviors.

High sensation seekers who are already at high risk for use of alcohol, watching a lot of R-rated movies only aggravates the risk. On the other hand for low sensation seekers, R-rated movies make a big difference. The exposure to R-rated movies is an introduction to violence and drinking for low sensation seeking adolescent.

The only word of advice to parents is, take the movie ratings literally. Under 17 should not be permitted to see R-rated movies.