Soap Opera Phenomenon

No. Most American-produced soap operas (although very popular) show a very false exaggeration of realistic, true, lasting and meaningful relationships. In the early days of soap operas such as “Eastenders” (a British soap opera which started in 1985), soap operas were aired mostly for housewives who traditionally watched these at home, perhaps whilst doing the washing. Companies advertised washing powders in between these shows, hence the name ‘soap’. The word ‘opera’ refers to a dramatisation and exaggeration of real life events. Most soap operas are typically centred within a single neighbourhood (unrealistic in today’s world) and try to portray ‘ordinary life’.

Personal relationships are shown as being full of unrealistic dramatic

It is therefore very easy to fall prey to losing our morals, values and better judgement just for the sake of ‘fitting in’ or ‘looking cool’. A very valuable life lesson for me, has been to rather experience inter personal relationships for myself, rather than to try and live it through ‘false’ media image’s or persona’s. Media relationships are almost always shown as glossy, fun, exciting, stimulating and incredibly thrilling yet this is not the case in the real world. Pictures of pool parties, island getaways, sex with multiple partners, extreme wealth, an endless supply of colourful alcoholic cocktails and extremely good looking girls and boys (with perfect bodies) are just not realistic at

This is due to the fact that most social media sites are free and very easy to access and set up. This makes it extremely tempting for us teens to view them, comment on them as well as share them with our friends. As detrimental as it may be, social media provides a platform for us teenagers in which to build our confidence, share and swop ideas, find old friends, make new friends, share new talents, share our deepest emotions as well as sharing videos and pictures.

Since social media is timeless and mobile, it specifically suits the chaotic and busy lives of most everyday teens!

However, we need to constantly be aware of and exercise a certain amount of ‘self discipline’ around the effects and impacts of social media on our own inter personal relationships. Time management and control on social media sites becomes an issue for teenagers, if not properly controlled. Teens easily get ‘sucked’ into social media sites resulting in important school work as well as family relationships suffering as a direct result.

Recent studies have proven that most teenagers spend more time each day on their phone and computer than they do sleeping... Social Media is slowly but surely taking over our lives and gaining more