Too woke for sex: Today's teens prefer to see platonic relationships over romantic ones on TV and in films, study finds

It used to be the older generation that was prudish, but now Gen Z would prefer to see less sex on television and less 'heteronormative' sex between men and women. 

Gen Z teens and Gen Alpha adolescents are also sick and tired of oversexualized characters, cliché 'love triangle' plotlines, franchises and remakes — in part tied to past research showing that young people are having less sex than ever before.

That's the finding of a new psychological survey that quizzed 1,500 young people between the ages of 10 and 24 on their evolving media tastes.

Nearly half of the 13- to 24-year-olds surveyed, 47.5 percent, said that they felt sex was unnecessary to advance the storylines of most TV shows and films. 

And a majority, 51.5 percent, wanted to see more depictions of friendship and platonic relationships on their screens.

But, while researchers admitted part of this shift was due to the age-old problem of studios recycling plots and leaning on sex to garner attention, psychologists behind the survey also linked it to 'an epidemic of loneliness' among teens, post-Covid.

Generation Z, typically defined as people born between 1997 and 2010, have already been dubbed 'Generation Sensible' for their lack of interest in drinking, smoking and bad behavior compared to those who went before them. 

But they are also coping with a harsher world.

'As a member of Gen Z myself,' said the study's first author, Stephanie Rivas-Lara, 'I wasn't surprised by some of what we're seeing this year.'

'There has been a wide-ranging discourse among young people about the meaning of community in the aftermath of COVID-19,' Rivas-Lara noted, 'and the isolation that came with it.'

Rivas-Lara, a youth engagement manager at the University of California, Los Angeles Center for Scholars & Storytellers (CSS), pointed out that the majority of teens from this year's survey reported that they choose entertainment media for the escapism.

The majority of adolescents, 35.7 percent, reported that they turned to entertainment media 'to escape and take my mind off of things.' Another 33.9 percent said that they simply watched 'to entertain' themselves.

Only 8.4 percent said that they were watching these forms of content 'to gather information about something.'

'Adolescents are looking to media as a 'third place' where they can connect and have a sense of belonging,' Rivas-Lara said, 'and with frightening headlines about climate change, pandemics and global destabilization, it makes sense they are gravitating towards what's most familiar in those spaces.'  

That desire for comfort viewing marks a dramatic reversal from the 2022 edition of UCLA's CSS survey.

Last year, adolescents asserted that the topic they would most like to see on screen could be described as 'lives unlike my own.' But this year in UCLA's Teens & Screens report, exploring the lives of others dropped to the ninth most common reason.

Now, teens' and adolescents' number two reason to catch a movie or a film, according to the survey, was the exact opposite: to enjoy 'lives like my own.' 

Given this trend, aspirational stories about rich and famous people were perhaps unsurprisingly lowest on the list of what adolescents want to watch, with only around 10 percent selecting these as their preference.

And unrealistic storylines, showing that hard work always equals success, for example, or that everything always works out perfectly, were the second most disliked stereotype.

Dr. Yalda Uhls, coauthor of the survey report, noted that recent studies show young people are having less sex than their parents did at their age, with many preferring to stay single.

'We know that young people are suffering an epidemic of loneliness and they're seeking modeling in the art they consume,' Dr. Uhls said in a press statement. 

'While some storytellers use sex and romance as a shortcut to character connection,' Dr. Uhls pointed out, 'it's important for Hollywood to recognize that adolescents want stories that reflect the full spectrum of relationships.' 

Film franchises like Twilight and the Hunger Games might have once delighted young audiences with storylines containing romance and love triangles, but new generations are viewing them with more skepticism.

On the report's list of adolescents' most disliked media stereotypes, romantic themes ranked fourth, with love matches often found to often feel 'forced', 'unnatural' or 'toxic'.

The top stereotypes mentioned in this category included love triangles, male and female lead characters always having to end up together romantically, and relationships being necessary to be happy.

'As demonstrated in this report, they've grown tired of stereotypical, heteronormative storytelling that valorizes romantic and/or sexual relationships – especially ones that are toxic – and are looking for more representations of friendship, which is a core aspect of adolescence and social wellbeing,' the authors wrote in the 2023 Teens & Screens report. 

A dramatic shift in the generations' ideas of sex, gender and politics also played a role in the shift, beyond Hollywood clichés. 

The report authors state: 'Gen Z's values and desires reach depths beyond what society has typically explored.' 

Among 13- to 24-year-olds, 39 percent wanted to see more asexual characters or 'aromantic' characters, meaning people with little to no romantic attraction towards other people, who have no desire or hardly any desire to strike up a relationship.

'Adolescents are also rejecting the dominating portrayal of traditional heteronormative relationships,' they wrote, 'and are calling for more diverse types of relationships in media.'

'AroAce is a term used to describe someone who identifies as both aromantic and asexual,' the authors report from their dive into the new teen lexicon. 

'While it's true that adolescents want less sex on TV and in movies,' Dr. Uhls added as a caveat, 'what the survey is really saying is that they want more and different kinds of relationships reflected in the media they watch.'

Meanwhile, the young people surveyed also said that they consider social media the most authentic form of media, above traditional television and media, with 38 percent choosing TikTok as the most authentic social media platform.

In viewing habits, half of those surveyed preferred for television shows to be available to binge-watch, while only a quarter preferred a show with a new episode every week.