How The Media Influences Teenagers

Media influences our children

It is no question that media influences teenagers to a great degree. Adolescents are more impressionable than any other age group. This is because this is a time when they are developing their identities in such a way that society will accept.

The media plays a large role in how teenagers view themselves by shaping images of what teenagers are supposed to be or do. How they’re supposed to dress, how they’re supposed to act… the media shows them this in simple commercials and television shows.

While kids view these shows as simple entertainment, they are really being marketed according to their interests. This is especially true about sex. Because teenagers are naturally curious about sex, the media sells this in copious form through dramatized teenage sexuality and ratings boost. Suddenly sex is casual, carefree, and fun, with hardly any consequences apparent. That just is not the real world.

One good example of this media phenomenon was shown in the Frontline program, “The Merchants of Cool.”

The images in this video really disturbed me, as it shows that media has given the children of America three choices for their future:

1) for a girl to become a “midriff,” so concerned about what other people think about her that she’ll go to extremes to fit in, such as with sexual promiscuity and excessive dieting.

2) for a boy to become a “mook,” a rude, disrespectful daredevil.

3) for them to become a teen rebellion, whose individuality and crudeness will be marketed by the media as just another trend outlet.

It seems they are doomed to become one of these three things because marketers are determined to discover what will sell to teenagers, one of their biggest consumers, the fastest. Like stated before, they have extended this thought into teenage sexuality.

Sex is more “in your face” than it ever has been before, and the media claims that they sell it because kids deal with sex every day. While that may be true, I don’t think they deal with it in the extremes advertised in movies and television.