Teen birth rate hits all-time low, led by 50% decline among Hispanics and blacks

I mean, if you're going to be unbound by facts or reality, why be boring?

To avoid dealing with bullshit from parents, the school hires an outside company to teach sex ed. Sometimes they failed in funny ways. In my daughter's class, they handed out a few Skittles and told kids to pass them around as the class went on. After a while they stopped to talk about the candy that had been handled by everybody and asked who would want to eat the now sticky, gross candy. They underestimated how picky kids are when it comes to Skittles - all were eaten.

On top of that, the stigma around using the pill decreases all the time. Parents are willing to get the pill for their daughters.

There is more access for contraception for women. Sadly no real changes for men. Although now you buy condoms online which reduces the stigma many young people have about buying them in person.

Without wanting to be too crude, he told me that partly the reduction in teen pregnancy is down to the prevalence of porn and how it ends in a facial rather than a vaginal ejaculation.

That, and poverty and bad education are big risk factors for teen pregnancy, and being born to poor, poorly educated people isn't likely to lead to you riches and a fine education.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-35761826

This. If you think that technology has done a good job of informing teens about the risks of pregnancy and the importance of contraception, you are probably being far too optimistic in the face of a dire situation (i.e. mass estrangement).

You're saying technology didn't spread the idea of having less sex; I don't even think the commenter you're responding to claimed as much, merely that for all the chatter about sex and violence on TV and video games and other media, teens are still doing a good job at not making stupid choices. Which is contrary to what many people believe today.

I don't think technology has very much to do with it, more the idea that if you're born into a household with five other starving kids, you're less likely to repeat what your parents did.

And, absolutely not. Tinder is legitimately causing hookups that probably wouldn't have otherwise happened so easily, just as an easy example.

I can only speak anecdotally but from observations it has increased social interaction for those who seek it - as social networking makes the process easier - while reduced it for those who don't seek it or want to take the path of least resistance. Technology merely accelerates individual desire. SJ's old chestnut: computers are like bicycles for the mind - well you could say the internet like is a bicycle for desire.

We know that as the standards of living (reduced mortality, longer lifespans, education etc) improve, the number of children produced decreases. That's one considerable factor.

With regards to Hispanics and Blacks in particular, as someone who grew up in a relatively poor household I quickly grasped how much my parents resented what having children did to their social mobility. They couldn't afford childcare, so only one parent could work. Despite having only a single income until we were teens, they could still afford a good-sized home relatively close to the city. Try doing that on two middle-of-the-road incomes today - not impossible but not easy, and very difficult with kids. The reality is that children have an anchor effect on the lower-middle to lower classes, while barely any affect on the upper middle to upper classes. Teens from poor households are probably well aware of the struggle ahead if they wish to have children.

The reason some choose to enjoy food more than others have in the past might be just because they enjoy food and are willing to give up their health for the enjoyment of eating. I'd rather be obese than a teenage parent.

Well, bluntly, it IS putting distance between the participants genitals.

"The secret sauce of influence is the telenovela's subtle promotion of extravagant materialism by means of a smaller family as opposed to the relative poverty of large families. It's also had the effect of promoting urban lifestyles."

I don't know how directly relevant this is to teenage pregnancy, but there does seem to be evidence for media consumption affecting reproductive outcomes.

[1] http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2012/06/how...

Not to mention easier to purchase/discreet shipping of sex products/toys.

Who claims porn has zero externalities?

Conservatives claim it somehow has negative externalities while I'll happily claim it has positive externalities (happiness, less rape, less pregnancy, etc.).

You don't think that's true?

Note: I said people who _feel_ fat, not people who _are_ fat.

You sound pretty sure of yourself.

Why is that?

That's true, but if your argument is the lower number of births is due to widespread availability of contraception, you have to address pregnancy and not just births.

I think we've lost something, a certain quality of life, as a result of the dispersal of families. 100 years ago, it was common in both rural and urban America for extended families to be under the same roof or at least nearby.

Now, kids move away, sometimes very far away, wait until their 30s to have kids, when the grandparents are getting too old and tired to help (except maybe financially) and the kids miss out on the rich multigenerational experience that was how people transmitted their wisdom, experience, and traditions.