Posted on March 19, 2010

While parents should pay attention to the ratings on movies to try and shield their child from content that may be beyond their ability to comprehend, new data suggests this monitoring can also help to prevent problems with alcohol later.

A Science Daily release reported on a new study that found adolescents who watch R-rated movies are more likely to try alcohol at a young age. The study examined 6,255 children and the relationship between watching R-rated movies and the probability of alcohol use across different levels of “sensation seeking,” or the tendency to seek out risky experiences.

This study was funded by the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism and was conducted by James D. Sargent, MD, a pediatrician at Dartmouth Medical School. The children involved in the study were surveyed every eight months for a period of two years from 2003 through 2005.

"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" Sargent said in Science Daily.

Sargent also noted that when it comes to the direct effect on alcohol use, the influence of R-rated movies depends on the sensation seeking level. Those high sensation seekers are already at high risk for use of alcohol and watching a lot of R-rated movies raises their risk only a little bit.

For low sensation seekers, R-rated movies can make a big difference. The study suggests that exposure to R-rated movies can make a low sensation seeking adolescent drink like a high sensation seeking adolescent.