Promoting Healthy Use Of Media For Children And Adolescents Essay

Media has become a significant component within society. While media provides many pros, it supplies various cons as well. One very prominent fault that the significance of media has is its visual depiction of women. There is an abundance of media portraying women to have ideal bodies, and this undoubtedly has a negative effect on adolescent girls. Two of the many effects of media on females are depression and self esteem issues, as well as eating disorders. Unfortunately, body dissatisfaction caused by media is becoming more and more common.

Within our society today, media plays a huge role in everyone’s life - an important role. Media offers entertainment, news, information, and education; however, with these benefits come negatives as well. For example, foul language, drug abuse, and sexual content may be presented to an unsuitable audience, specifically children. It’s easy to see sexual content on tv, hear foul language in songs on the radio, or even hear about the abuse of drugs and alcohol. Children are especially good at mimicking what they see and are easily influenced. So, with all this content being shown openly with no censorship, children think this is a social norm, as well as spending long periods of time watching TV, playing video games, and using the internet. Modern technology has transformed the way children learn and interact within their environment, it is having a negative effect on them in this younger generation with all the easy access to all genera’s of media material for long periods of time.

Add to this study a statistic from the Official Journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics “75% of teenagers now own cell phones, 25% use them for social media, 54% use them for texting, and 24% of them use them for instant messaging” (Gwenn Schurgin O'Keeffe). We have an entire generation that is developing socially and emotionally while “plugged-in”. This negative effect is not only caused by just internet use and cell phones, our old friend the television is causing us harm as well. With the invent of newer ways to deliver television shows, the ability to better record television shows, and watch “on demand” shows it shouldn’t be shocking to know that according to Neilson Ratings the average American household watches “5 hours and 11 minutes of television a day” (Who Watches What (and How Much)? U.S. TV Trends by Ethnicity). Psychologists have proven that too much television has been shown to “hamper development of the pre-frontal cortex -- the area of the brain responsible for planning, organizing and sequencing behavior for self-control, moral judgment and attention” (Abell) there should be no doubt that this fact and the fact that nearly “1 in 10 children in America have been

The effects of media have been a topic of interest and research for many years (Viet, Štulhofer, & Hald, 2016). Multiple studies show the harmful effects of media on adolescents and young adults. It is a dominant force in our current world, with the average number of hours online up to 23.6 hours per week, as compared to the 9.4 hours per week in 2000 (Cole, Suman, Schramm, & Zhou, 2017). Excessive screen time and internet use alone has been linked to increased levels of depression and anxiety, and is discouraged for all age groups.

Children are often labeled as the future of today’s society. Their minds are the ones that will lead us to greatness or, ultimately, set us back in advancement related ways. Their brains are easily impressionable and must be molded in ways that give them the necessary tools to be outstanding, productive members of society (Bee, Boyd, 2014, p. 266). Today, there are so many different channels that the media have access to. It is nearly impossible to monitor what children are exposed to. Numerous studies have been conducted in hopes to measure the effects exposure to media can have on young adults.

Various studies have shown various health concerns for teens' technology use. These negative effects include, but are not limited to, reduced fitness, sleep disturbance, emotional costs, eye strain, and even brain damage. The author and pediatricians alike persuade parents to limit their teenagers' screen time. This is a crucial time for adolescents to stay healthy and active as their brains undergo massive changes from puberty until the mid-twenties. Overuse of technology also leads to impairment in both social and academic situations, as teenagers are spending less time face-to-face.

Adolescence is a time where an individual’s sense of identity starts to emerge and a majority of their social norms are perceived. In this day and age, adolescents live in a world heavily submerged around media, which plays an important and habitual part of an adolescents' life. In a national survey conducted in 2009, adolescents on average spend more than 7.5 hours using some sort of media a day (Rideout, Foehr, Roberts, 2010). With this unprecedented access to the world, individuals are learning and connecting with many different people and ideas through the media (Brown & Bobkowsi, 2011). With different forms of media playing an influential part in an adolescents’ life, their perceived social norms may be seriously influenced.

The media is a part of everyday life in American kids. Children are surrounded by technology, entertainment, and other media that is full of violence. Newspapers, magazines, radio, television, and the internet all contain violence. Today's media has a negative influence on children. The media does have an influence on them, but does it really influence them to act out even though they know it's wrong? Mass media, and its components, are very powerful and can influence one's mind, as well as their behavior. Children that imitate characters who use violence in the media and display aggressive behavior, tend to give them reason to believe that violence can happen without consequence. For children who grow up with poor adult examples or an

The media is a huge part in everyone's lives and they have a great influence on the actions we partake in on a daily basis. Though adults don't usualy fall into the pressure of the media, young children and teenagers ae highly sussestable to what the media is telling them to do and what's 'cool'. A major action glorified by the media is smoking and it pressures minors to take up the horrible habit as an attempt to be happy or some how be like their favorite celebrity. Media and holly wood especially have both contributed to an era of people smoking and are a direct cause for the increase of youth smoking today.

Unlike previous generations who were “introduced” to the internet, television and social media, the present generation is “born” in it. By this statement, it is implied that children today are much closer to technology and media than adults are, and so, are more likely to be affected by it. Perhaps, the highest impact on the physical, cognitive, and social-emotional development of children and adolescents is by media due to its ready availability through Smart phones, tablet PCs and other portable devices. This paper attempts to evaluate some of the influences of media on various aspects of child and adolescent development.

For years, many researchers have done individual studies on how media affects children. A review, which analyzed 173 of the strongest papers over 28 years, found that “80% of researchers are in agreement that heavy media exposure increases the risk of harm to children, including obesity, smoking, early engagement in sexual activity, drug and alcohol use, attention problems, and poor grades” (Szabo).

Over the last decades, it is generally realized that the educational technology has developed dramatically. Electronic media has benefitted the system of education in an enormous way. Electronic media is the media which uses electronics or electromechanical energy for the audience to access the content. Video recording, audio recording, multimedia presentations, CD-ROM and online content are all forms of electronic media and any equipment used in electronic communication process such as radio, television, desktop computers, laptops, electronic whiteboards, and electronic textbooks is also considered as electronic media. Education has become far more convenient as internet and social

Many sources of popular media, such as television, video games, and music, can lead to improvement in the intellectual or behavioral development of children, but at the same time, these sources of media can also be harmful to child development. Television is seen as one of the worst of the three, as it is seen as media source that requires no activity from the viewer, music can also help in the development of children’s cognitive functions and abilities, but at the same time has been found to be potentially harmful for some children, and video games, surprisingly, have been found to be substantially beneficial to cognitive development in children. It is also vital for parents and children together, to explore the dangers and benefits that are offered to children through the medium of media and technology.

Teens may not like this, but if they spend more than two hours per day on entertainment screen time, they are damaging their brains. Children, teens, and adults all over the world are spending non-school or work related time at their computers for over two hours a day, wiring their brains to do things that cancel out the ability to have real world interactions, and the ability to do the essential things that help them live. Some may argue that letting kids spend time on the screen is good because it will wire their brain for the future of technology and culture on Earth. Others claim that we are already making our kids go to school for six hours, and should let them have some free time where they can do what they want. Given the potential benefits and risks of entertainment screen time, particularly to the development of the teen brain, the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) should keep the recommended daily entertainment screen time at two hours, rather than changing it to four hours. This is because being online makes teens multitask, which is not good for

There is no doubt that when it comes to American youth television is one of the biggest influences by far. Many parents would love to say that their child does not watch that much TV but in reality they are spending a lot of time watching television or using media in some way. “The study by the Kaiser Family foundation shows that children ages 2-8 spend an average of 5 ½ hours a day “consuming media” kids 8 and older spend even more time in front of the tube nearly 6 ¾ hours a day” (Kaiser Family Foundation, 2005 ). Astonishingly, more time is being spent with media then doing homework, studying or even spending time with family. A child’s retention of what