There are a lot of things to do on a snow day. But on a "cold day" none of those things involves me wanting to go outside.

So with my day off on Thursday I slept in, stayed warm, and cruised the Internet. I ended up watching TV online and stumbled upon "The Secret Life of the American Teenager." A long time ago, I had watched the first episode and was a little curious to see what had happened since then.

I forgot, though, that I didn't watch the show ever again because the entire plot seemed really contrived to me. The basic premise is that a 15-year-old gets pregnant after having really bad sex at band camp. Chaos ensues as the other teens at her high school let their hormones run wild.

After watching a few more episodes, I realized that shows like this can only exist because adults think that they know exactly what happens in high school. To them we are either delinquents who run around constantly having sex and doing totally stupid life-altering things or we are innocent church-goers who are constantly tested by our immoral peers.

To me it is ridiculous that there is no in-between. In television there is no gray area. So for normal teenagers, what are they supposed to turn to if they don't know how to act? According to television they have to be perfect and uncool, or cool but promiscuous and rule-breaking.

Beyond this two-sided story, "Secret Life" also makes it seem as if counselors and parents know exactly what is going on. Certainly some adults are clued in by their kids, but it seems a little contrived to me that a school counselor would hear it through the grapevine that one of the students was pregnant.

Within the course of the few episodes I watched, a guy told a girl he loved her after the first date, two freshmen who were "friends" were having sex all the time, someone tried to pretend that their pregnancy never happened, and a marriage was broken up. All of these things seemed like they were dimly connected to real life but wouldn't actually happen.

All in all, my experience with the one TV show that focuses solely on teen pregnancy was not a very positive one. However, it was also impossible to look away as the story unfolded. There was something about the idea of something like this happening that made me want to see how everything involved would turn out.

So while shows like this are not accurate, something about their imperfect view of the teenage life is so appealing that I can understand why the media depict life like that. It's all about ratings.