The Drama Effect

A new study has come out pointing to the idea that a television drama is a better way to move teens to action or alter teens’ behavior than giving them a news story focused on facts. The study gave students a fact-based news story about teen pregnancy and showed an episode of The OC. The news story had no effect on behavior, The OC episode did.

While we may not have needed a study to know that people change their behavior only when they emotionally relate to a story, it’s still good to keep that in mind when talking to our kids about sex, love, drugs, food, school and all the other really important things we want to help our kids understand.

Afte rall, how many of you were texting on your cell phones in the school pick-up line without a bit of guilt even though you’d heard the statistics about accidents?

That is until Oprah told us the heart-wrenching story about the little girl who was killed by a texting driving while riding her bike only a few pedals from her mom.

Oh, the anguish of the family of the child, the child and the driver. It’s the empathy that makes us change our behavior. It’s the desire to avoid that horrible feeling.

For more information about the study check out Science Daily.