According to Forbes, she had 300,000 tweets per minute about her.  She also added 100,000 followers on Instagram, and 50,000 friends on Facebook–this was Miley Cyrus shortly after the VMAs.

 After Cyrus’ raunchy performance at the VMAs, one has to wonder if this performance is another blatant symbol that displays America’s increasingly crass media culture.

 According to the American Psychological Association, American teens are exposed to around 14,000 sexual references per year.  This onslaught of distorted relationship values has a corrosive effect.

 Constant and dehumanizing media is changing men and women’s’ perception of their individual sexuality and their roles in the fundamental unit of society–the family.

 Movie theaters in the United States allow anybody under the age of 17 to be admitted into R-rated movies as long as they are accompanied by an adult who is 21 and older.

On the contrary, when I visited Scotland when I was 12, I was not allowed to see the R-rated action movie Gran Torino with my father – who is significantly older than 21.  Scotland is not the only country in Europe that possesses tighter movie viewing legislation.

 So the question is, how do these different media laws reflect themselves in diverse societies?

 According to the American Medical Association, teenage girls in the United States between the ages of 15 to 17 years become pregnant at a rate of 75 per 1,000 every year. This rate is two to seven times larger than many other similar first-world countries.

 Moreover, according to research done by Bridgewater State University in Massachusetts which compared sexual assault rates in Canada, England and the United States, stated,  “According to recent statistics, Canada has the highest rate of less serious sexual assaults and the United States experiences a higher rate of serious sexual assaults (including rape). England’s sexual assault prevalence is lower than the other two nations.”

Interestingly, the United States and Canada both have significantly more tolerance than England when it comes to people being able to view movies that have illicit material.

 It would appear that the use of media with strong sexual content would increase the trend for violent and predatory sexual behaviour.  It had previously been theorized that these materials would act as a release and diminish these types of behavior – this has now been shown to be incorrect (with devastating social consequences).

Lastly, Forbes further stated that, “[Miley Cyrus’] behavior is part of a carefully executed plan to rapidly recast a former child star as an adult (albeit with a healthy dose of childish impetuousness) in advance of her next album, “Bangerz” … And, as the numbers show, it’s proving to be a wildly successful marketing effort.”

Why is it such a big deal that Miley Cyrus used her sexuality as an accepted “successful marketing effort”?

 This crass media culture mocks and erodes the foundation that holds children, fathers, mothers and the elderly together in tightly knit and complimentary organization – which is the traditional family.

 Granted that this may seem cliché, civilization historians Will and Ariel Durant commented, “the family is the nucleus of civilization.”

 Time will determine whether or not America can continue to thrive without its previously stable “nucleus.”