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Impacts of media on teens
Impacts of media on teens
Impacts of media on teens
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How do you feel about beauty standards? Do you think television has a great impact on the way we see each other? What about the way we see ourselves? Beauty standards are defined in many different ways, such as the way someone acts or the way other people view their personality; it is not always just about the outside appearance. Models, actors, actresses, and others who pop up on every channel you turn to are expected to look and act a certain way at all hours of the day. These presumptions are then pushed onto us, as ordinary people. Consequently, they tend to have a huge impact on our everyday lives. The way beauty standards are portrayed on television can affect the self-esteem of teens in a negative way by promoting looks and nothing more. …show more content…
For example, on the show The Vampire Diaries, Elena Gilbert is the main character. The camera always catches Elena looking her best while doing things as dramatic as dying to something as simple as rolling out of bed. Her makeup is always done, her “messy hair” is nowhere near actual messy, and she has the perfect figure. She is absolutely gorgeous, and all the boys want her. The is great for her character, but this is not realistic. This is giving false hope to females and high expectations for males. Ordinarily, you do not wake up with their your and makeup already done, and boys will not be fighting over us as high schoolers. This shows teenage girls false expectations that are close to impossible for us to …show more content…
An example of this would be the show America’s Next Top Model, where people use their looks to compete for the title of “America’s Next Top Model” and they chance to really kick start their career in the modeling industry. According to Source I, teens who are already very thin are collapsing on runways in the interest of achieving the “perfect skinny look” that all models seem to have (Graydon). Shows like America’s Next Top Model stress the significance of looks and how they can have a great impact on your fortune. Everyone is expected to have a certain look if they want to thrive in the modeling industry, but everyone is their own beautiful. This is not emphasized
When discussing the definition of beauty in today’s society, thin, fair-skinned, and long-haired are all words that are agreeably in the top five adjectives used. These standards of beauty tend to be engraved in brains of children, teens, adults, Americans, Asians, Europeans, men, women, and etc. all day every day. These ideals are portrayed through television commercials, billboards, newspaper ads and all other forms of media, such as Disney channel programs. Behavioral norms are also a major topic depicted in Disney channel programs; these programs depict that certain races, social classes and genders behave in certain ways, some which are sometimes stereotypical. These ideals are targeted to children who are “reaching an age where they are developing an awareness of self and comparing that self to the ideals presented in the media” (Northup and Liebler 268). At what point do we question by whose standard is this normal? Are we supposed to continuously live in this box of subjectivity and suffer while trying to reach this “standard?” Is this standard really a standard or cultural norm? It is said that these depictions shape the behaviors and actions of children and affect their self-esteem and self-image, but that is not always true. Most children in today’s society are mature enough to differentiate between television and reality.
The misconception of what is beautiful can be detrimental to young girls. In a television industry attempt to sell goods, they are depicted as sexy. Creating a need for parents to intervene and present a more realistic and normal view of physical beauty. Today, TV presents sexually based images crafted to appeal to young girls. Unfortunately, they are led to believe that their value is only deep, causing flawed expectations, illusions, and wrong information about the truth of the physical body in the real world.
Research shows “that regular readers of fashion and beauty magazines in early adolescence are more likely to suffer from a distorted body image during their teenage years” (“Children, Adolescents and the Media”), when they read beauty magazines they read articles and tips of how to look better and they try to them all to look and feel better about themselves. Research shows that “more than three-quarters of girls repot that television influenced their body image” (Mascarelli). Social media influences how we act and what we do Amanda Swartz once stated “Social media and mass media influence the way we react and interact with our world and potentially influence the perception of our own body image” (Mulliniks). In today’s worlds there are more ways to access websites to promote body image as a positive thing, “On the internet, there are now more than 100 pro anorexia websites that not only encourage disordered eating but offer specific advice on purging, severely restricting calories intake, and exercising excessively” (“Children, Adolescents and the Media”). It’s not a bad thing to eat healthy and work out to be fit and healthy but it’s another thing to eat less and work out excessively. Teens always compare themselves to others, either their peers, models and celebrities, “People are on Facebook or Instagram and they’re constantly comparing themselves to other people” (Mulliniks). Also reality television shows, show only the glamorous about what is happening, like “when teen moms become celebrities, the message to avoid teen pregnancy is lost” (Kroll). When teens watch shows like Teen Mom they don’t see the entire negative about becoming pregnant as a teen they see that the teen mom got famous and is on the show. Social media, media, magazines, and TV give teen’s unrealistical facts about body image, pregnancy and
The media and how it affects our society has changed tremendously over the past few decades. Our population of children who spend a lot of time in front of the television or on social media continues to increase, creating a superficial view of themselves and who they should be. This superficial outlook has been created by the media because it preaches to our society that looks matter. Not only are there millions of advertisements saying to lose weight and buy certain products to be beautiful, but there has been a specific standard of beauty set for models and actresses to obtain. These standards include big eyes, volumino...
Media is always setting a standard somehow that affects our identities and how we see ourselves. From Kilburn discussing the advertisements including models targeting women and Prager talking about how Barbies targeting young girls and displaying what kind of standard is being set, to Godsey talking about how seeing male models and actors lowering the self-esteem of men and setting standards for them as well. Media is affecting our identities and how we see ourselves.
“Remember those posters that said, “Today is the first day of the rest of your life”? Well, that’s true of everyday but one – the day you die.” – Lester Burnham
The many women who do not expose themselves would influence others to perceive their physical appearances as beautiful. “Many popular magazines for females tell women to focus on their physical, outer attributes (i.e. body shape, muscle tone, bone structure, hair, makeup, clothing, etc.) and rarely mention the importance of being smart, sophisticated, funny and/or possessing many other positive attributes that have nothing to do with physical attributes” (Sparhawk 1). Obviously, the media’s representation of the thin ideal connects to the majority of body dissatisfaction and eating disorders. In other words, the media’s use of unrealistic women sends a hidden message that in order for women to be beautiful they must be unhealthy. The importance of physical appearance is encouraged at an early development for most girls.
Everywhere one looks today, one will notice that our culture places a very high value on women being thin. Many will argue that today’s fashion models have “filled out” compared to the times past; however the evidence of this is really hard to see. Our society admires men for what they accomplish and what they achieve. Women are usually evaluated by and accepted for how they look, regardless of what they do. A woman can be incredibly successful and still find that her beauty or lack of it will have more to do with her acceptance than what she is able to accomplish. “From the time they are tiny children, most females are taught that beauty is the supreme objective in life” (Claude-Pierre, p18). The peer pressure for girls in school to be skinny is often far greater than for boys to make a team. When it is spring, young girls begin thinking “How am I going to look in my bathing suit? I better take off a few more pounds.”
Sam Mendes’s provocative debut film American Beauty was a blockbuster after its release in 1999, wrapping up three accolades at the Golden Globe Awards, reaping nominations in miscellaneous film festivals. Beauty and reality are the two major and discrepant elements in the film. Symbolically, beauty eludes humans’ possession, and such elusion is often offset by its presenting a form of reflection on the reality. Thrills, often followed by disillusionment, of quasi obtainment of such heavenly beauty feed humans’ incessant pursuit of beauty in reality. In the film, beauty gets lurid, and reality becomes horrid. A black comedy, American Beauty achieves a Grotesque atmosphere by escalating such disparity to a peak at which the protagonist Lester Burnham irrevocably bursts to death, posing a proposition of man’s raison d’être.
Fashion models don’t need to be thin, they need to be diverse and healthy at whatever weight that is. Not everyone is supposed to be thin, some women are big boned and curvy, others are naturally slim and small boned, some are tall, others are short, some are light skinned and others are darker. So many diverse looks exist in the world today and the fashion industry need to change their perception of perfect. Body image in our society is out of control. We have young men and women comparing themselves to unrealistic models and images in the media and feeling bad about the way their own bodies look because they somehow don’t measure up. (Dunham, 2011) The struggle for models to be thin has led to models becoming anorexic or bulimic, untimely deaths, and inferiority complexes. Even worse is the fact that they influence a whole generation of young women who look up to these models and think “thin” is how they are supposed to be. They influence what we buy, how we eat and what we wear. Why has this specific group captured our attention so much? Why do we seem to be so fascinated in their lives, to the point where we try to look and act just like them? The media is largely to be blamed for this, many people believe the media has forced the notion that everything supermodels do is ideal. Others believe that the society is to be blamed because we have created a fascination with their lives. There are many opinions, and I agree with both of these specific opinions. We allow ourselves to be captivated by these people's lives, and the media portrayal of their lives seem to also enthrall us. (Customessaymeister, 2013) Despite the severe risks of forcing models to become too thin, designers, fashion editors, fashion brands and agencies still ...
This means that young children and adults are being exposed to media and advertisements several hours every day. Due to the fact that the brain does not fully develop until the age of 24; children and young adults are the most vulnerable class citizens to the proliferation of medias messages. Today younger girls starting as early as age’s six to eight are becoming more concerned about their physical appearance, because it is more emphasized and reinforced. Media is portraying to children and young adults that their value and worth lies in their youth, beauty, and sexuality. When children are watching TV they are constantly exposed to the unattainable and unrealistic standards of beauty, criteria that only a small percentage of women meet. Media’s unrealistic models send an implicit message that in order to be considered beautiful; you must be “unhealthy.” Many children and young adults are also exposed to reality television. In reality TV the media portrays that every women is catty, bitchy, manipulative, vindictive, and not to be trusted, they are on display to be judged and objectified by men (documentary). Researchers are unclear of how exposure to images in the media affects their physical appearance; although there are many different perspectives on how they may be affected by it. Some of these perspectives include social comparison,
People are always complaining about how they aren’t as pretty as models on billboards, or how they aren’t as thin as that other girl. Why do we do this to ourselves? It’s benefitting absolutely nobody and it just makes us feel bad about ourselves. The answer is because society has engraved in our minds that we need to be someone we’re not in order to look beautiful.
The media’s way of portraying a woman can be skewed and unrealistic from what reality is. Teenage girls then have a desire for this look or style. In this essay, the three ways I will describe as to why the media can negatively affect a teenage girls body image is by showing unrealistic bodies and women, women whose bodies are desirable by a mass number of people, and lastly not allowing all body types to be equally shown as “attractive.” The pattern is similar for the portrayal of women on television, magazines, and other parts of the media. The way media represents women is for them to be thin-like models and other women on television to be the high standard of “attractiveness” to others.
The concept of “beauty” is something that everyone feels, thinks, or wants, in order to fit society’s standards. In today’s society, we are often faced with the unrealistic ideals of what beauty is. Due to society’s constant portraying of unrealistic beauty ideals, this reinforces a negative influence upon women’s idea of beauty, resulting in a negative impact in their confidence, and self-esteem, which leads to others, specifically women to be manipulated by society’s corrupted outlook of what beauty is. To add onto this issue, we are constantly surrounded by sources of this negative influence in our everyday lives, including magazines, television, advertisements, and so on. However, women specifically, are more prone to be victims of this negative effect, thus will have more pressure upon themselves to match society’s idea of “beauty,” which includes unrealistic and sometimes unattainable beauty standards. Women especially, can sometimes be so deeply manipulated by society’s unrealistic ideals of what is beautiful, such that it’s possible that they don’t even realize it Furthermore, in order to do so, women often will receive negative impacts rather than positive impacts, such as in their confidence and self-esteem. The negative effects of society’s beauty ideals also lead women to have an overall corrupted idea of what is “beautiful.” Society creates unrealistic ideals of beauty towards women through the media by creating an unrealistic image of what women should look like to be considered beautiful. Men negatively affect women’s idea of beauty by using the unrealistic beauty standards exposed by society which further pressures women to try to fit society’s idea of what is beautiful. Beauty pageants negatively affect women’s ov...
Susan Bordo states in her article “Never Just Pictures”, that children grow up knowing that they can never be thin enough. They are thought that being fat is the worst thing ever. The ones responsible for this are the media, celebrities, models, and fashion designers. All of these factors play a big role on the development of the standard and how people view themselves. Everyone at one dreams about being the best they can in any aspect. But to achieve that most believe that one of the big factors is outer beauty. So people look at celebrities and fashion designers, and believe that to be accepted they have to look like them. That’s when they take drastic measures to change their appearance because they’ve been influenced by the Medias idea of “beautiful.” This feeling mostly happens in women but in recent years the gender gap has become smaller. Now men also feel the need to look good because of the media. On the TV, instead of having infomercials ...