Granting everybody is being affected; teenagers are more vulnerable to the media and suffer the highest impact. This is because; they are exposed to the media eight hours a day typically. They spend more time under the media’s influence than with parents; instructors, or even friends; as a result, these deliberate and unsettling messages rendered by the media are demolishing the mentality of teenagers today as it alters their views of the world and their place in it. Teenagers feel immense pressure to mimic the twisted images being shown by the media. Even though, these images that are being presented are, in fact, unrealistic and unattainable to the majority of the people watching it.
With the media constantly invading the lives of woman with these type of images, it is no wonder teens begin to believe in the standards, of what woman should look like, set by the media. In the media, “Woman‘s physical beauty [is] emphasized” (Schooler, 754). This causes teens to strive to look like the people they see in the media, even though the media sets unattainable standards. There are specific gender roles that the media tells us are acceptable. Woman are always portrayed as sex objects, waiting to be taken advantage of by men.
The counter argument on this quote most likely would be from the sellers because they have to sell their product to earn money. So they will do anything possible to sell their product. Girls become convinced that they require particular fashions to belong in a society that emphasizes materialism. The next paragraph is going to be about how these magazines play a significant role and the effects in a girl’s self-esteem. Teen magazines can have a devastating effect on girls' self-esteem.
The media is the major contribution of influence on people today old and young. However, adolescents as well as young adults are influenced by it more so than any other demographic. When media is mentioned we as people often associate it with the news or press conferences, but the media stretches further than that. The media is described as a channel in which information or entertainment can be viewed, read or heard. Televisions, therefore, can be found in every house along with a computer.
Magazines are a large part of our society, whether it is when they are featured in commercials, seen in stores, or on social media including the magazine's website. This means that people, especially women, are exposed to images of women who are seen as perfect, women who are often photo shopped beyond recognition and realistic possibility. These magazines often offer beauty and fashion advice, and discuss celebrity gossip. However, magazines often depict unrealistic beauty standards and perpetuate double-standards between women and men, particularly regarding age. One magazine cover in particular, a People Magazine with Julia Roberts on the cover, discusses the concept of "staying forever young."
This results in extreme and inaccurate views of the activities of young people, that often relies upon scare tactics and the over exaggeration of rare news stories in order to make such activities seem worse than they are. This leads to youth being constructed as folk devils, which occurs after the resulting moral panics. Examples of this include the mods and rockers of the 1960s. Although relatively few youths identified as either of these labels, as the media pushed the story of the 'war between mods and rockers' onto the public, this in turn led to more youths choosing to identify as a mod or rocker. This is known as the deviancy amplification spiral, in which the media makes a relatively small problem much worse, thus presenting young people as a problem group.
In today’s world, media heavily affects the way we perceive ourselves. The ideal body image that most people perceive nowadays is no longer based on an average but based on how media and society promotes it and that is a body that is highly unattainable for most women. Media promotes size 0 as the ideal body image causing many women judge themselves based on the beauty industry’s standards. Mass media defines the ideal body image by promoting it through the various platforms such as magazines, advertisements, and television and that is extremely immature. One example to prove my point is that the girls on magazine covers are mostly photo shopped to perfection.
Media sources are ubiquitous. Daily, we are exposed to television, radio, internet, magazines, newspapers, etc. It is easy for someone to feel pressured or influenced by the rumors or facts that the media provides. Since the younger generations are experts with technology and are exposed to the media the most, they are the most vulnerable to the media’s influences. Slowly but surely, the daily lives of an average American Teen has changed since the previous century.
I believe that the media has a very negative impact on today’s youth. More and more teens are looking to the media to find information about sex, drugs, and violence. With a lack of parental involvement, and guidance many adolescents are looking to these sources for
Girls want to have a body like Britney Spears and guys want to have a body like Brad Pitt because in the eyes of the general public, to be “beautiful” you have to look like them. Plastic Surgery is changing something about ones self that they do not like. Whether it is for bigger breasts in females or larger calves in males it can basically be associated along with the simple act of dying ones hair. It is hard growing up with something about yourself that you do not like. On covers of practically every magazine we see physically fit and beautiful male and female models.