Media Effect on Young Girls Development in Society - Essay Example

Media Effect on Young Girls’ Development in Society The effect of media on modern day teenagers is in most cases crystal clear. The key contributing reason is that on average, today’s teenage girl spends about 44 hours a week on various forms of media e.g. television, computer and cell phones. This time surpasses the number of hours the teenage girl spends in school. From the different forms of media, the teenage girl is exposed to a wide range of information like thin ideals which they internalize with the aim of being the ‘the perfect girl or the sex goddess’ (Durham, 2010). In addition, the teen age period in girls is associated with struggles of coming to terms with body image, search for identity, struggle to balance between learning and play hours, social and parental pressure, and health and wellness (Tiggemann & Miller, 2010). At their age, young teenage girls search for role models or heroes who they emulate in almost every aspect including diet and other values. The media is a cheap and accessible source of information and young teenage girls are inclined to it not just for school work but also in resolving their teenage issues. Although, the discussion surrounding the impact of media on young girls brings out varied opinions, the media is the main culprit when it comes to shaping young teenage girls’ personality. According to psychological studies, children and adolescents learn by observing and imitating which results to low self-esteem, eating disorders and peer mirroring. The curiosity to change their body image and search for identity among teenagers increases the need to seek for the best options from the media and results to low self-esteem. Therefore, in an attempt to emulate media images, girls often take drastic measures to look like celebrities. Low self-esteem seems as a thinking disorder that causes girls feel inadequate, incompetent, unlovable and unworthy. Once formed, the negative image causes young teenage girls to entertain a negative perception of self that penetrates through their thoughts and the media content offers an easy but short-term solutions. Some teenage girls develop eating disorders as they become dissatisfied with their bodies. Most girls are not satisfied mostly by their size and try to change themselves just to “fit in”. By the time most girls reach their late teen age, they have received a great deal of information from the media about how the female body should look like (Sheila, 2003). The pressure from the media is too much with unrealistic expectations of how young girls should look, how they are expected to act, how their body image should be, hair, makeup and clothing. Exposure to thin models has affected the way girls view beauty (Valdivia, 2009). This has led to girls looking up to women with unrealistic body shapes as role models. The thin-ideal is constantly being advertised on cover of magazines, fictional characters in movies and models (Dohnt & Tiggemann, 2006). This has led to girls as young as 15years trying to starve themselves so as to stay thin a condition known as Anorexia. Peer mirroring is also as a result of teenagers observing and imitating the beliefs, actions and patterns of their friends. Although this s not a bad thing but without genuine connections young teenage girls tend to lose their individuality instead of establishing strong friendships with their friends. In this case, the teenage girls lose make wrong choices and are less aware of their actions. In order to prevent the limitless imitation behavior by teenage girls, parents should take time to enlighten their children of their developmental stages and help them to fit in. Most media in today’s society introduce teenage girls to addictive lifestyles like acts of sexuality, addiction and abuse of substance and addiction to the internet and media at the expense of time with parents and family. Sexuality has been made common and expected society aspects for example in movies, music videos and pornographic sites. Additionally, sexually oriented content has become more explicit and target younger kids while movies’ ratings become less strict and the content teenagers are exposed to are aimed at making them ‘hot’ (Durham, 2008). Despite negatively affecting persons of all ages, media’s sexual content particularly affect teenagers as the individuals used are mostly young women. For instance, portrayal of young gays and lesbians and images of flirtatious girls engaging in sex are made available more readily today compared to years ago (Dohnt & Tiggemann, 2006). As a result, there is increased curiosity in young people to engage in sex without considerations of the positive and negative impacts. As much as teenagers learn about the dangers of having pre-marital and unprotected sex, their curiosity in to the world of sex makes them engage in sexual intercourse activities at an early age (American Psychological Association, 2007) thereby increasing cases of early pregnancies and the contraction of Sexually Transmitted Infections (STIs). Parents should know what their teenagers are exposed while watching, listening to music and surfing on the internet and guide them about sex to enable them distinguish between wrong and right. The media also plays a key role in addiction and abuse of substances by teenager girls. Television programmes and movies contain considerable amounts of substance abuse. Many music videos portray smoking and drinking of alcohol as acceptable behaviors. For example, cigarette smoking is associated to the young, healthy and independent people in the society whereas the advertisers do not show the adverse consequences of smoking. Many of the alcohol adverts are aired during teen oriented shows (Sheila, 2003). Additionally, most television series mislead the young minds as they display pictures of teenagers partying and having unprotected sex with more than one partner. As a result, teenagers feel pressured to experiment without the slightest clue of the consequences involved. Use of illegal drugs is most seen on music videos and many teenagers actually follow what these superstars who in most cases are their role models and start using drugs (American Psychological Association, 2007). Parents in this case should limit unsupervised media use and especially encourage removal of televisions from their teenager’s bedroom and should also limit the access by their young adolescents to television venues that depict the use of substances e.g. MTV Base which mostly shows music videos that have the use of substances like alcohol and cigarettes. Parents should also co-view with their teenagers and discuss the content being viewed thereby giving advice to their teenagers about substance abuse. Addiction to and overconfidence in media content is portrayed by Gentile and Walsh (2002) with teenagers spending too much of their time watching television or surfing the net at the expense of spending desirable amount of time with their parents (Tiggemann & Miller, 2010). The implication is the tendency to develop disconnection with their parents and may prove to be a hard task when raising a teenage girl. Parents need to be extremely vigilant with their teenage girls and discuss with them the right and wrong and come to an agreement as a way of strengthening their bonds with their teenage daughters. Some forms of addictive media content include Reality shows and teen magazines negatively influence young teenage girls by depicting dating at young age as obvious. Additionally, Teen magazines encourage girls to ‘being hot’ through acquisition of the latest haircuts and flirting tips for girls during dates (Durham, 2008). These magazines have little to say to girls about academic values and are mostly based on beauty tips, and the importance of having boyfriends among others. Content in teen magazines therefore, corrupts the mind of young teenage girls and makes them obsessed about their looks and strive to appear as depicted by the media. Parents should encourage their teenage daughters to read educational magazines and journals. The media, especially the internet, exposes young teenage girls and boys to cybercrime, especially since it provides a platform for chatting with strangers; violence; and despise of education owing to misplaced priorities (Sheila, 2003). Girls are more vulnerable to sexual predators that notoriously use social chat platforms to lure them into friendships only to sexually exploit them. Parents should be extremely vigilant in ensuring that their teenage daughters do not befriend sexual predators using fake identities and emphasize on the dangers of chatting with strangers intending to meet them. The media also shows too much violence and vulgarity through movies. Consequently, the minds of young teenage girls begin to emulate such characters and for teenagers who spend a much time on violent movies, the result is the development of aggressive and violent behaviors towards parents and other students at school or at home. Parents should consider regulating the content their teenagers are exposed to while emphasizing on the need to keep off from violence (American Psychological Association, 2007). This is because teenagers can learn antiviolence attitudes, tolerance towards people of other races and respect for their elders. Although the media can be educational to teenagers by providing beneficial content, the reality is that most young teenage girls hide under the cover of academic reasons to view unacceptable content which top their priorities (John & Jeong-Ju, 2013). Parents should limit the internet content accessibility through passwords and placing computers within monitoring range like the living room, and be mindful of their own media practices, since teenagers always emulate their parents. Communication with teenagers is the only key to minimizing the rampant misuse of the media as it builds trust and enables parents to understand their teenage daughters’ experiences. By communicating, it is more likely that any teenage daughter will be comfortable enough to talk to the parent about matters that affect them and avoid instances of dismissing academic work for non-academic media content. Although, the discussion surrounding the impact of media on young girls brings out varied opinions, the paper has explored the media as the main culprit when it comes to shaping young teenage girls’ personality. Personality of teenage girls is affected by observation and imitation, addictive lifestyles and exposure to violence, cybercrime and despise of education for misplaced priorities. In order to deal with negative impacts of the media among teenage girls, parents should raise their teens to be media healthy (Gentile and Walsh, 2002). A family should have a constant media plan that shows when young adolescent watches television, what shows they should watch and those that they shouldn’t e.g. reality shows and create a setting for dialogue. Parents should create a setting were they introduce watching of educational programmes e.g. discovery channel’s thereby effectively using the media to educate and empower healthy development. Schools should also set media programs of literacy training to assist in fighting negative media influence. Reference: American Psychological Association, (2007). Task force on the Sexualization of Girls. Report of the APA Task Force on the Sexualization of Girls. Retrieved from http://www.apa.org/pi/women/programs/girls/report.aspx Dohnt, H. K., & Tiggemann, M. (2006). Body image concerns in young girls: The role of peers and media prior to adolescence. Journal of Youth and Adolescence, 35(2), 135-145. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10964-005-9020-7 Durham, M. G. (2008). The Loita Effect: The Media Sexualization of Young Girls and What We Can Do About it. Woodstrock, NY: The Overlook Press. Gentile, D. & Walsh, D. (2002). A normative study of family media habits. Retrieved From http://www.parentfurther.com/technology-media/facts/facts_mediaeffect.shtml John, J. and Jeong-Ju, Y. (2010). Adolescent Weight Preoccupation: Influencing factors and Entertainment Media Exposure. Journal of Family and Consumer Sciences. 102(2), 33-41. Sheila, G. (October 29, 2003). Teen Magazines Send Girls All the Wrong Messages. Retrieved From http://womensenews.org/story/uncovering-gender/031029/teen-magazines-send-girls-all-the-wrong-messages Tiggeman, M. and Miller, J. (2010). The internet and Adolescent Girl’s Weight Satisfaction Drive for Thinness. Sex Roles, 63, 79-90. Valdivia, A. N. (2009). The Lolita effect: The media Sexualization of young girls and what we can do about it. Choice, 46(10), 1862-1862. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/225725405?accountid=35812 Read More