Today the media is integral part of our lives. According to research, an average teenager spends 10 hours a day on either auditory, print, or electronic media. Media is a manipulative messenger that rapidly became a powerful tool that greatly contributed to a dramatic decrease of families interaction times ; it maintains our consumerism ,delivers a content that shapes our moral beliefs, , and perceptions of what’s beautiful and what’s important.
According to the article “Media and Socialization” , people that spent their time watching Television and playing video games get the same satisfaction as they would get it through the interpersonal communication . It’s like a placebo , which takes place of real interaction between real people. Though using media feels as good as having an actual conversation , it doesn’t contribute to our interactions skills any positively . While spending almost 6 hours a day watching or listening to the media, an average American person spends only about two minutes to converse with a family member.
This trend may have dire consequences on children as well as on adults. Husbands and wives don’t talk to each other as much as they use to . Instead they turn themselves to the massive media to find a relief of pressure by chatting with someone else online This trend, according to “Communication Studies” Has greatly increased the numbers of divorce. Children also losing their skills of their communication because they spend too much time on watching TV, playing games, or using their cellphones,.
The media and advertisement play a big role in the maintenance of consumerism. Children, who watch television the most of their free time, receive a message from advertisement about what’s good for them and what they should ask for. After becoming manipulated , they put a lot of pressure on their parents demanding a certain type of cereal or chocolate that they have seen in the ads. Not only children are affected by the advertisement, but also adults are affected as well. Today advertisement has an enormous stigma and manipulative effects.
Everything in advertisement: the colors, the images , and even the voices are created to trap a consumer and make him or her believe that they really need and want the products that they advertise. It’s very hard to ignore such manipulative messages that sneak inside our brains to dictate what we should buy and consume. A lot of times the messages that are spread by media contain violent content. Intense, sexually offensive messages that are insulting and demeaning women are everywhere we look.
Abuse of women is demonstrated on television , magazines , and on the internet.. Media brings out a message to men that they have the power over women who must obey them in every way. Not surprisingly , according to research only 17 % of women comprise the congress of the U. S. , while 51% of them make up our population. It’s shocking to know that in China , Iraq , and Afghanistan have women are more promoted and their percentage in congress is much higher than in the United States ,Violence also reflects on our children .
We hear on the news and read in the newspapers about the cases where children became affected by violent video games or heavy metal music committed homicides or engaged a very abusive behavior . It’s scary to realize the power that media have over us. From a very early age girls get a message that the most important thing for them is their appearance . Being beautiful is more important than being successful, educated , and talented. According to media girls should be skinny, tall , and glamorous. The media ignores the fact of different types of metabolism and body structure, and reinforces a very thin body types over and over again .
This trend leads to anorexia, bulimia, and depressions which can lead to the fetal ending. It’s frightening to realize the powerful effects that media have over us and our children. It steals our time, tells us what to purchase, fills our minds with violence, and distorts our perception or what is beautiful. It seems like media has endless ways to affect us and our behavior. But what media cannot do is to prevent us from educating ourselves about its negatives effects. With knowledge comes understanding and clarity, and hopefully some ways of redemption.