Television and Teen Pregnancy: Influencing Behavior Researchers Melissa Kearney and Phillip Levine (2014) found that Internet searches and social media posts about contraception spiked after the airing of episodes of the MTV docu-series 16 and Pregnant. They also documented a 5.7% decline in teen birth rates in the areas where viewership of the gritty docu-series was highest. The research is correlational, so it can’t be used to establish a direct cause-and-effect relationship between viewing the program and the decline in teen pregnancy. However, as researcher Melissa Kearney (2014) comments, “we think the biggest takeaway from this study is that what teenagers are watching can make a really big difference in what they think and, ultimately, how they behave and really important life decisions.”

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