My topic is heavily based on the impact of the media on the younger generations of today’s society and whether or not I believe that this is the only aspect of life that has an impact on the children of today. Media has to be one of the largest and most prioritised aspects of societies all around the world. There are products of media placed in almost every town and city in the world, whether it be in the form of an advertisement or simply a named brand in a television soap opera – they are everywhere.Many individuals believe that the media is controlling the minds of the younger generations and that it has one of the largest impacts of all. But can we really accuse the media alone, or are there other aspects of society that contribute to the rise in things like promiscuity within children under the legal age, random acts of violence, eating disorders or even the rise in suicidal deaths.
The media plays a huge role in the creation of our dysfunctional generation, filling pages of the prefect body, dieting tips and even filling our TV screens with these media products.It is hard to escape this perception of what you are supposedly meant to look like and act like, as it is displayed everywhere. The media is constantly bombarding the public with pictures of the perfect men and women in magazines, newspapers and even through advertisements on the TV and on computers – so it’s no surprise as to why young girls and boys feel pressured into changing themselves in order to feel wanted and accepted by everyone else. In addition, there are many other aspects of society that influence changes within the younger generations.One non-media aspect that could influence change could be family life and a child’s living conditions as well as the amount of care they receive from their parents or carers, education could also play a massive part. If they are introduced to bad habits and communicate with the wrong people, then they are more likely to alter their behaviour and attitudes in order to fit in with their new peer group – interacting with the wrong people could make children behave in a bad way.
Many other aspects of education may influence changes; for example, if a child is being bullied they may feel influenced to change their appearance to fit in or may even consider ending their life due to constant bullying – however, bullying could link back to the media as it has become increasingly easier to bully people through social networking sites and chat rooms – this is most commonly known as ‘cyber bullying’.Many individuals may feel that because they see all of these perfect looking individuals through advertisements, that the people who look a bit different or aren’t like the people on the advertisements aren’t good enough and do not fall under the categorical perception of what is ‘beautiful’, ‘perfect’ or ‘normal’. But then again, who determines what is beautiful, what is perfect or what is classed as normal?Everybody has different ideas of what beauty, perfection and normality are, so how can we label someone as ‘ugly’ or ‘abnormal’ when there might be someone out there who thinks the complete opposite? How can people generalise their ideas of someone without taking other people’s opinions into consideration as well as taking the victims feelings into consideration. As a generation, we are very quick to judge.If someone isn’t wearing the right clothes or hasn’t done their hair in a particular way, we instinctively judge them – even though we rarely say our thoughts out loud, we still instinctively judge them without getting to know them first.
I could hardly blame this on a particular asset of society, however I believe that society and the people within it have created this judgemental generation and are to be blamed partly for the way we treat people who have caused us no harm whatsoever.
