Media and the Discrepancy Between Ideal Self and the Real Self

While searching for a journal article, we came across one study that we thought was very relevant to today’s world. It was a study by authors Martin Eisend and Jana Moller that proved that TV viewing did increase the incongruence between the ideal self and the real self among women as well as men. Since the beginning of technology and its advancements, the media has never been as strong in influencing people as it is today. This especially holds true to younger generations because they are more exposed and have more means of knowing what everything else is happening in the world. The media has a very strong hold on people especially with regards to how society would act towards them. Media dictates the rules and regulation for society. From girls needing to be as heavy as paper and men needing to be as ripped as Ryan Reynolds, to people dressing up as Korean pop superstars or singing songs made famous by Justin Beiber, people really never had the chance to show their individuality or their real self because of the impossible standards set by the media. Media has proven to be one of the strongest if not impregnable walls greatly separates the ideal self from the real self of a person. There are various reasons in how media affects the gap of our real self with our ideal self and we will try to enumerate as many as we can. First, the media shows celebrities with their perfect skin and perfect hair matched with the perfect clothes and the most expensive gadgets that one could afford. Of course, people would want to imitate their idols the best way they could. The media shows too much exposure to celebrities which results to people knowing more about them ergo, more people would try to be just like them. With media influencing the minds of people, the ideal self gets a great boost that puts it in a level that the real self would have difficulty matching with. People would always want to want more because of the trends media offers. With these trends, media