Will 2024 Trends Give Us a Better or Worse 2025?

Last year had its share of ups and downs, with some positive trends that are of benefit to families – like teens who are tired of seeing sex on TV, and the elimination of cellphones in schools. But 2025 leaves plenty of room to advance positive solutions to protect kids online and to continue to advocate for Hollywood to cease marketing harmful content to our children.

Here's a look at 2024’s trends:

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Sex on TV Doesn’t Sell With Teens

Teens aren’t interested in seeing sex in TV and movies, according to 2024 research from the University of California, Los Angeles’ Center for Scholars & Storytellers.

According to Variety, “Researchers found that 63.5% of adolescents said they preferred that big and small screen stories focus on friendships, while 62.4% said sexual content isn’t needed as a plot device. Those are big jumps from the previous year when 51.5% of those surveyed said they wanted more content about people in platonic relationships, and 47.5% said that they didn’t seek out shows or movies where sex was a major plot point.”

PTC VP Melissa Henson said, “Hollywood must think twice about including sex scenes in entertainment given that younger generations have indicated they don’t want to see this. The entertainment industry is guilty of focusing on sex to sell younger viewers on programs like ‘Euphoria’ and ‘Sex Education.’ This has to change.”

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Teen Mental Health Crisis Fueled by Social Media

The children are not alright.

With the 2024 release of “The Anxious Generation” by Jonathan Haidt, Wall Street Journal columnist Peggy Noonan wrote, “What we all know is that there’s a mental-health crisis among the young, that they seem to have become addicted to social media and gaming, and that these two facts seem obviously connected. Mr. Haidt says, and shows, that the latter is a cause of the former. … He tells the story of what happened to Generation Z, which he defines as those born after 1995. … This became ‘the first generation in history to go through puberty with a portal in their pockets that called them away from the people nearby and into an alternative universe that was exciting, addictive, unstable and . . . unsuitable for children and adolescents.’”

A plethora of harms has risen – an increase in depression in both girls and boys, a rise in anxiety disorders, among others. Suicide is second leading cause of death among children and young teens in America.

The PTC believes that the youth mental health crisis is certainly caused at least in part because of kids’ connections with phones and screens. The PTC advocates for increased responsibility on the tech industry to work to prevent online harms to children, and renews its call on Congress to hold the industry responsible.

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Congress Punts on Solution to Protect Kids Online

Despite the advocacy from parents, grandparents, and many organizations, Congress failed to pass the online child protection legislation like the Kids Online Safety Act and the Children and Teens’ Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA 2.0) in 2024.

PTC VP Melissa Henson says that Congress is not off the hook in 2025. “The reality is that predators target children online to sexually exploit or extort them. Whistleblowers have revealed that Instagram was harming teens’ mental health and exposing teens to sexual harassment. Children and teens have been targeted by powerful algorithms with eating disorder and other harmful content. Children can access sexually explicit and graphically violent content with a click of a button,” she said.

“Big Tech is enabling our children to be harmed online because the proper guardrails on their tech platforms have yet to be installed. No one has held Big Tech accountable for this clear lack of safety. The Kids Online Safety Act will ensure that Big Tech protects children and shields them from harm. COPPA 2.0 gives children enhanced privacy protections online,” Henson added.

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Schools are Eliminating Cellphones in Classrooms

In 2024, schools districts and states moved towards restricting cellphones, with 28 U.S. states having made efforts to do so, according to a PTC white paper released last year.

“It is imperative for student success that their learning environments be free of distractions, and access to social media and other digital platforms on cellphones creates the opposite effect,” PTC VP Melissa Henson said.

A Pew Research Center study found “68% of U.S. adults say they support a ban on middle and high school students using cellphones during class.”

There is tremendous momentum across America with getting smartphones out of the classroom and we expect to see this continue in 2025.

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Disney Takes a New Direction?

In April 2024, Disney CEO Bob Iger would cease advancing “any kind of agenda,” a welcome sign to families.

However, Disney also continues to forge ahead with adding adult content to its streaming platforms – Disney+ and Hulu - further ensuring that children will have easier access.

Take the explicit sexually-focused film Poor Things, which the PTC warned parents about. Not only is the film available on Hulu, but it is also available to Disney+ subscribers. If parents don’t have parental controls enabled, their children will have easy access to this film and other extremely explicit adult content.

Disney-owned Hulu airs shows like PEN15, which shows a young female character performing a sex act on herself, and A Teacher, during which a teacher and her minor student have an illicit, and illegal, sexual relationship that is romanticized, and its FX and FXX cable channels have aired Little Demon about a female teen that finds out her dad is the antichrist.

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Will 2025 continue some of these positive trends and course correct the others? Time will tell. Please follow along with us as we work together for the well-being of our children. Sign up to stay informed at https://www.parentstv.org/subscribe.

Happy New Year!