Media Effects On Teenagers

Malcolm X (n.d) stated that media is a powerful creature; it has the power to manipulate the public opinion into making the innocent guilty and vice versa. This statement by Malcolm x shows how media has become very dangerous that it is able to control the minds of people especially teenagers. In fact, media has developed to be a way of living and has become inseparable to teenagers’ daily routine, resulting in a mass destruction and limitation for the human creativity. Media can affect adolescents’ life and behavior in various ways such as manipulating them, causing health issues, and leading to distraction from studying.

Teenagers are manipulated unwillingly through advertisements, television programs, and celebrity gossip. This mainly occurs

The mass media has generated a lazy generation with no responsibility to create priorities. For instance, a normal youth nowadays would prefer to watch the television or media instead of going out to socialize. This is the main factor why most teenagers will grow having health issues due to the lack of physical exercises. Media can have immediate effects and postponed effects that cause health problems to the body. When teens tire themselves and spend more time than they can on television programs, that can cause what is known as the eye strain which is an immediate effect. This health issue should not be taken lightly since it has a chance of developing into an annoying disease if teenagers continue this kind of behavior. Moreover, a fact that cannot be denied is that obesity is one of the most obvious results of long sitting hours, it does not happen directly but instead it happens after some time. An after effect of obesity is what can happen when a teenager sits at wrong positions on a couch that will definitely cause back pain. As a result, laziness will undoubtedly be generated in teenagers because the more interested and attached they become to such media the more they are vulnerable to be uncreative and unproductive in this

Teenagers do not understand how important studying is for their future career, therefore they tend to waste their free time and not give the time needed for their studies. According to Emma Haylett (n.d), ”The average American youth watches 1,200 hours of television per year that’s 300 more hours than they spend in school”, it means that the factor that plays the major role here is addiction. By addiction adolescents will not be able to have their full attention on their studies, that is why they keep everything for later and watch media for the time being. In fact, whatever is taken in class cannot be counted as studying and will not give you a whole understanding of the subject, if teenagers do not put in some effort themselves. The real purpose from going to classes is to get initiated to study and practice at home. But instead would lack the concentration to focus on what they have to do. This will satisfy the negative effect of media on those adolescents in terms of disturbing their studies, and how it makes teenagers prefer entertainment over something that would benefit their future career. To conclude, media has specific features that make it dangerous to today’s youth. The fact that media can convince the receiver of wrong aspects, continuously ruin their health, and become a distraction from studying are enough reasons