Research Essay

Perhaps some people thinking about the media that makes them able to meet and communicate with people around the world. While some others think about that, social media is the channel that gives them the chance to send and receive many information. Others think that social media is about the way we get many updates from people who we follow and maybe someone out there thinks social media is a part of a new marketing strategy.
Nowadays, social media seems like a big part of our life
Everything looks and feels easier to do with social media.
The mainstream mass media (television, magazines, movies, music, and the Internet) provide increasingly frequent portrayals of sexuality. We still know relatively little about how this content is used and how it affects sexual beliefs and behaviors. The few available studies suggest that the media do have an impact because the media keep sexual behavior on public and personal agendas, media portrayals reinforce a relatively consistent set of sexual and relationship norms, and the media rarely depict sexually responsible models. More longitudinal research, especially with early adolescents is needed to learn more about how media content is attended to, interpreted, and incorporated into developing sexual lives.
Media is a vast form of communication that permeates nearly every aspect of modern culture. Teenagers are exposed to all sorts of media outlets, from television, movies and advertising to social media sites such as Facebook and Instagram. Media isn't inherently positive or negative; however, teens should have a healthy balance between exposure to media and other, intellectually and physically stimulating activities, says the Palo Alto Medical Foundation.
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It's no secret that media has had an increasingly negative impact on the way teenage girls measure their personal image and beauty standards. The sizes of supermodels and actresses often influence teenage girls -- who are actively seeking to find an identity -- to believe they have to be thin to exemplify beauty. Magazine advertisements encourage teenage girls to think their hair needs to be long or short, red, blond or brunette -- whatever the flavor of the month -- in order to be considered beautiful. In order to minimize the effect of these messages, Boise State University psychology professor, Mary Pritchard, writing for "The Huffington Post," praises parents who limit their teens' exposure to various media outlets. Teens should be taught to value their own definitions of beauty above all else.
Glorifying Negative Behaviors: Negative
Movies and television programs often show characters using drugs and alcohol and engaging in violent behaviors. At a developmental stage when teens seek greater freedom and independence, the glorification of drugs, alcohol, risky sexual and violent behaviors in the media make it challenging for teens to make responsible behavioral choices. Still, media cannot solely be blamed for teens' consumption of drugs and alcohol, or involvement in sexual activities; ultimately it's up to parents to teach their teens about the negative consequences associated with risky behaviors, and the false images often perpetuated in the media for financial gain. Palo Alto Medical Foundation suggests that teens learn to use their critical thinking skills -- and parents can help them in this area -- by distinguishing fantasy from reality, and analyzing the agendas and target audiences of various advertisements.
Cultural and Political Awareness: Positive
The Raising Children Network says that teens can benefit from media exposure by developing cultural and political awareness. Television, films, magazines and social media sites expose teens -- who may otherwise be limited to interactions with people from their own cultural and ethnic backgrounds -- to an array of different people. While family members and peers may perpetuate stereotypes of different cultural groups, media outlets can offer a diverse display of cultural or ethnic groups -- such as Asian, Latino and Black Americans -- that encourage teens to think critically and question cultural stereotypes. News outlets, such as CNN, Fox News and Al-Jazeera English, provide teens with an opportunity to develop a political stance. Exposure to news and information about events occurring around the world also allow teens to participate in charitable acts or consider other ways to engage in benevolent deeds.
Social Skills Development: Positive
Teens can learn to enhance social interactions with their peers through involvement in social media, says the Raising Children Network. Quite often, friendships on social media sites are merely offline extensions of existing, face-to-face relationships. Social media also allows teens to cultivate new friendships, which brings them access to wider networks and provides even greater learning and social opportunities. Other benefits for teens engaged in social media include increased social confidence, more social support and heightened media literacy. Social media diversifies teens' social skills, which will help them navigate through a technologically astute society.
Media is a one-faced communication provider. It tells you what is there, and it pulls you into its grip, but it does not suggest you or tell you what problems you may face later with it. For instance, you may want to become super-anorexic now, and you may succeed too, but later the eating disorders might ruin your life… You might purchase a beauty product which is exactly the same to what your favorite celebrity uses it. With so much engrossment into advertisements, you later start facing skin problems or rashes that you realize are going to exist forever. Whilst watching violence on television, it may be entertaining at first, but what if the next day you see your kid carrying a gun at school- which according to him is “just for fun!!” Media succeeds in creating a current successful impact on its viewers, but it does not provide sufficient information about the after effects of such a success. So watch out for who is trying to hunt you down!!