Originally Posted By: GumbyJarvis
Besides the point, I was born in 1992, and didn't have my own television in my room until Junior year high school, 2008-2009. didn't have satellite until my senior year high school 2009-2010.
What ever happened to hard work, family morals, and the American Dream?
To answer your question, I don't think much has happened that wasn't already happening. Things are just more out in the open.
Teen pregnancy is nothing new. If anything, it was more common in the past due to lack of education. I was born in 1987. When I was in high school, teen pregnancies were practically unheard of, which wasn't the case earlier on. I remember one girl getting pregnant when I was in high school, and my high school had thousands of students. My sister is 9 years older than me, and some of her peers were getting pregnant in middle school! That was in the early 1990s.
As far as family values, my grandparents on my mom's side of the family were raging, mean, crazy alcoholics. That was in the 1950s-60s. They didn't have a beer with their fried chicken, they had maybe a few beers and some liquor, and then they would fight.
I do agree vices are more prevalent in popular entertainment now, but it's really nothing new that wasn't going on before. It's just out in the open more. That's probably not a good thing with the way some of it is glorified, but I don't think more teens are getting pregnant, or more people have addictions when considered as a proportion of the population. A lot of the family values presented in earlier TV shows were just a facade.
As far as kids and access TV, I was never allowed a TV in my room when I lived at home up to age 18, but a lot of my friends had their own TVs with cable. That's not all that new. I agree the amount of media exposure and access is greater today, but our generation didn't really go without. I was among the first of my friends that had my own computer with internet, so we knew about rotten.com and all the other nasty sites back in middle school in the late 1990s and early 2000s.
That said, I find the Kardashian clan's antics a bit repulsive, along with glorification of teen pregnancy, etc. So I choose to not watch those shows. In fact, I haven't had cable since 2012. It's just not worth the expense for me. I watch reruns of Law & Order, PBS documentaries, and Hotel [censored] on over the air TV. That pretty much satisfies my appetitie for TV. I did go on a Walking Dead binge while house sitting for my cousin though.