This study aims to explore how media use for health information and interpersonal health communication interact in the context of healthy lifestyle behaviors. This study hypothesizes that media use for health information and interpersonal health communication will serve as substitutes for one another. To test this hypothesis, this study uses a nationally representative survey of 2,107 civilian, noninstitutionalized adults in the United States. The results show that the associations between television use and Internet use and healthy lifestyle behaviors are enhanced among those who talk about health issues with their family and friends less frequently, which supports the substitution model. The implications that these findings have for future research are discussed.

This study documents the extent of sexual content, including sexual health content, in scenes with and without expressions of love on network and cable television popular with emerging adults. Sexual talk and/or behavior was found in 20% of all television scenes coded across 53.5 hours of programming. A third of these scenes featured sex alongside expressions of love. An additional 10% of scenes suggested love but not sex. Coded as a separate category, 25% of analyzed scenes contained a passing joke or pun referencing sexual organs, making these non-specific comedic one-liners the predominant reference to sex in this sample. Beyond jokes, most of the sexual or loving talk in this sample consisted of expressing a romantic interest in someone; sex- and love-related behaviors largely consisted of kissing or flirting. Very few scenes specifically referenced sexual intercourse. Sexual health messages were also rare. The majority of scenes mentioning any health consequence (= 7% of analyzed scenes) concerned emotional heartache. One scene mentioned sexually-transmitted infections; 12 of the nearly 2,600 scenes coded mentioned condoms or contraceptives. It is thus a challenging proposition to build upon existing sexual depictions on television to promote safe sex practices within sexual and loving contexts.

A survey was conducted with low income Latina teens ( = 13.31 years of age) to examine the ways in which exposure, identification with, and social comparison to teen mothers featured on the MTV program influenced attitudes toward teen pregnancy. Analyses revealed that those who identified with and looked up to the teen mothers on were less likely to think getting pregnant would be embarrassing, a terrible event, or prevent them from achieving their dreams. The identification and upward social comparison processes observed here extend those observed in previous research across ethnic, income, and cultural differences. Implications regarding the potentially negative effects of portrayals of teen motherhood on are discussed.