MTV, Technology, the Secular Trend, and HIV/AIDS: Why Kenyan Parents Need to Learn about Adolescent Development

Abstract

As technological innovation increases the pace of communication and trade, traditional patterns of family interaction, education for adult social and vocational roles, belief systems, health and dietary practices also change. This is so because it is generally the young who are most heavily exposed to imported ideas and practices. They become the early adopters not only of technology, but also of trivial fashion fads and of profound, life-changing behavior, values, and ideology. At no stage in life is this more apparent and of greater concern to their elders than when it occurs concurrent with the physical changes marking puberty.Traditionally, the biological changes of puberty were both themselves predictable and predictably associated with changes in social role, often marked by rites of passage and always marked by change of status within the community. In recent times, however, the timing of puberty itself has changed. It is now earlier, most markedly so among urban dwellers, and catches children and families unaware. This, more than the annoyingly rapidly turnover in fads related to popular culture that are readily accessible even in remote areas through communications technology, is likely to be a source of family conflict.Consider the case of the individual going through puberty at 12 to 13 years of age when his or her parents' and grandparents' cohort was one, two, or more years older. The community is faced with girls and boys who are physically mature, but who have neither learned to do the tasks traditionally expected of women and men nor had adequate life experience to take on the responsibilities of young adulthood. This disturbing situation is rendered even more discordant when the individuals concerned are challenging elders' authority, behaving like children at one moment and claiming adult privilege the next. In societies without the concept of adolescence as a life stage, the appearance of what are, to Europeans and North Americans, familiar adolescent behaviors brings confusion and, in cultures with high HIV transmission rates, also threatens the continued existence of the community itself.

Importance of the Media in Scaling-Up HIV Testing in Kenya

“…The aforementioned literature shows that there are several programs in place to keep HIV/AIDS on the consciousness of Africans. The mass media in Kenya have targeted young sexually active people through media such as billboards to promote VCT (Ginsberg & Gekonge, 2004). Marum et al (2008) analyzed data from more than 130 VCT sites in Kenya and found that utilization of mass HIV testing services increased with the use of “professional, intensive mass media campaigns” (p. 2019).…”