The impact of adolscents' media use on risky driving: a longitudinal study.

Traffic crashes kill 3242 people each day and injure or disable between 20 million and 50 million people a year (World Health Organization, 2004). It is therefore important to study all possible causes of dangerous driving (Arnett, Irwin & Halpern-Felsher, 2002; Harre, 2000; Reinhardt-Rutland, 2007). Several authors have expressed concern regarding the way in which driving is portrayed in the media. Since adolescents spend a significant amount of time watching television and playing video games, they fear that the portrayals of driving in the media might have an impact on young drivers. Recent research has found an association between media use and traffic related risk-taking. However several issues have remained unanswered. The current project will investigate the mechanisms behind the media influence and construct an integrated framework for explaining the relationship between media use, attitudes, intentions and risk-taking behavior. Furthermore the direction of the association between media use and traffic related risk-taking will be examined. A combination of longitudinal research, experiments and ecological research will be used in order to provide an answer to these issues.

Keywords:Traffic, Media, Risk-taking, Longitudinal research, Effects, Television, Video games