MTV reality shows are amongst those most frequently criticized for appealing to the lowest common denominator and exploiting the human experience, but a very interesting finding recently published could certainly argue the merits of one show in particular.
A new study released on Monday by the National Bureau of Economic Research in the US, claims that MTV’s "16 and Pregnant" led to a 5.7% reduction in teen births in the 18 months after its premiere on TV.
This startling figure amounts to a third of the overall decline of teen births in the US in the same period.
Researchers Melissa Kearney and Phillip Levine noted that the decline in teen pregnancies had dropped at a greatly increased rate in recent years, 7.5% a year for the past four years, in contrast to an average of 2.5% a year from 1991 to 2008, they went looking for reasons why.
The MTV show has been on air since June 2009 and has aired for five seasons to date, with each show following one teen though the months of her pregnancy and beyond.
Researchers looked at the viewer numbers for each show and Google and Twitter trends to determine how the show may have impacted, and found spikes in searches for information on birth control when new episodes aired.
Comparing the data, they found that geographic data showed locations where tweets about the show corresponded with areas where searches for birth control information spiked.
They also found that areas with high viewership showed a bigger drop in teen births.
"The results of our analysis indicate that exposure to '16 and Pregnant' was high and that it had an influence on teens' thinking regarding birth control and abortion," the researchers concluded.
