The Negative Effects Of Reality TV On Teenagers

In the study by the Girl Scouts Institute over 1000 girls ages 11-17 said that they regularly watched reality TV and “accept and expect a higher level of drama, aggression, and bullying in their own lives as well” compared to girls who didn’t watch

Young minds can be easily persuaded by celebrities they admire, so it's no disbelief a director would select these influential people to get teenagers to watch their show. With these celebrities, directors believe their ratings will go up and more people would be inspired to be like them. Reality TV mainly effects teenagers because they're easily manipulated and swayed that beauty, sex appeal, and verbal aggression is tolerable.

American actress, Lisa Bonet, once said, “What saddens me is the corruption of youth and beauty, and the loss of soul, which is only replaced by money.” Today’s television shows are decaying into more polluted and inappropriate ideas, which are then presented worldwide. This is a negative influence on not only young people, but also society as a whole. How can it be expected of youth today to be appropriate role models to future generations with such corrupt influences? With the filth, dishonesty, and abuse of freedom of speech, reality television ultimately does more harm on today’s society than good.

The Girl Scouts Institute did a study in 2011 entitled “Real to Me: Girls and Reality TV” in which they gave many statistics to support the way in which reality TV affects young women. In this study, they collected data from over 1,100 girls around the country and what they found was astonishing. Many of the girls, 50 percent of them to be exact, believed that real-life reality shows are “mainly real and unscripted” (Girl Scouts Institute 1). Their study showed that girls who consumed reality TV are more likely to be focused on their physical appearance. Seventy-two percent say they spend a lot of time on their appearance versus 42 percent of non-viewers. Thirty-eight percent of

What once started as every day, regular people appearing on television shows have now morphed into celebrities and want to be celebrities competing for attention and doing almost anything to receive it on primetime television. The genre of television, which was once jumpstarted by the appeal of relatable people, who could be the viewers’ next door neighbors, being featured has since disappeared and been replaced by a monstrosity that does not accurately portray reality and often stereotypes people (Huff). One specific group that has been targeted by what reality television has morphed into is women. The new version of reality television is specifically adequate at encouraging gender culture, the set of behaviors or practices associated with masculinity and femininity (Huff). Reality television enforces gender roles and negatively impacts feminism in today’s society. Reality television sexualizes women, portrays them as dependent on and less superior to men, and exemplifies them as dramatic, catty, and often only as homemakers. The portrayal and stereotyping of women on reality television is demoralizing and can be described as “the contemporary backlash against feminism” (“Reality TV”). These false and demeaning stereotypes are prevailed in all types of reality television shows, making their impact extensive, considering Americans spend one-third of their spare time watching television and of that time sixty-seven percent is spent watching reality television (“Reality

The evolution of television content is currently steadily moving towards reality television shows. The shift from interest in fiction drama series to reality shows has turned the regular television viewers into addicted voyeurs. There have been diverse views on the effect of reality television shows ranging from support to criticism. George Will, in his article “Reality television: oxymoron” believes that reality television is making ordinary people degenerate morally and act stupid in the effort to please a disinterested audience. Reality TV shows are relying heavily on building extraordinary characters or events out of the norm and attract the attention of the audience. Kellner argues that the audience is enticed by “media constructs

Slouching into the velvet couch, I watch as she puts on another designer dress I watch her beautifully shaped body as it glides across the floor to her wealthy man. Ever absorbed by the image in the television I look down at my own smudged shoes. I look across the room in the mirror and I can see nothing but an average girl with no beauty, no fancy clothes and no wealthy man to take care of me. Watching reality television is extremely toxic to the minds of high school girls and how they see reality. The focus on the materialistic things in life opposing, what high school girls need in life. Reality television's disregard for the importance of education causes high school girls to value their education less. And the image portrayed by the actors on reality television causes girls to feel the need for vast aesthetic improvement. It is all these reasons that are distorting the image of reality that these high school girls are facing.

The reality television could have a negative impact to girls because the luxurious and shining lives in some program are what most girls yearn for.To attract audiences’ attention,the edition may focus on the aspect that is excited rather than positive,which could cause the information conveyed to the audiences incomplete.The reality television does affect lives of the participants as well as the audiences.Adrienne Maloof,for example,a woman who is extremely successful in her life

For close to a decade, the ethics behind the existence of reality TV have been questioned. While there are ardent viewers of reality TV, researchers and other scholars disapprove them, and claim that the world would have been in a better place. Reality TV shows, especially in America, are extremely profitable to media owners, and this has increased their popularity in the recent years. The main target audience for these shows are teenagers and women, who spend a lot of time discussing about them, even hours after the shows. Most of the reality shows in America and other parts of the world have common ideas. The most fundamental aspect of most reality TV shows is that they display people who go through embarrassing, painful and humiliating ordeals. This is what the reality shows expect their audiences to be entertained, and presumably laugh at the situations the people go through. For this reason and many more, it has been found that they are more detrimental than entertaining to the society, and therefore, the world would be in a better place without them (Pozner 89-91).

Television was not at its best a decade ago, producers were struggling trying to figure out how it can reach to a broad audience and have them stay. Thanks to reality T.V, the television industry has not been the same ever since. Reality TV always get its viewers on the edge of their chair, from shows like The Bachelor, to other shows like Intervention, “all of them make you sit up and pay attention” (Poniewozik 1). Reality TV shows will do whatever it takes to get people to watch them. From a simple show called The Bachelor talking about love stories, to a show where they show a life of drug addict. They all presents a stories within, and sending a message to its viewers. What makes the viewer watches the show is the messages that the reality tv show trying to reach to its viewers.

This research will focus on the negative impact of reality TV and analyse facts and examples of influence from reality TV shows. The information provided and studies are referred from year 2000 till present hence it will be based on most recent popular reality TV shows.

1. Most girls will do whatever it takes to be skinny and look like the stars that weigh 100 pounds "...the media influence on the cultural phenomenon of dieting and the perfect body. “Commercials and reality TV shows make you feel bad about yourself so you buy into the fad," Cohn said. The diet industry earns $50 billion each year on diet pills, and $8.4 billion is spent every year on cosmetic surgery. Women -- and men, Cohn stressed -- want to be thin, because large men and women are ridiculed" (Demmel). Eating disorders continues to be problem among young girls because of their role models. Girls on reality TV shows have that 'perfect' body and girls what to be everything like them.

There has been a huge increase in “reality” based television over the last few years. From Survivor to Big Brother it seems that we are constantly being bombarded with a new type of reality television program. But why do people watch these shows? What makes these shows so interesting? One theory brought up in an article in Psychology Today by Steven Reiss Ph.D. and James Wiltz, a Ph.D. candidate at Ohio State University, is that, “reality television allows Americans to fantasize about gaining status through automatic fame” (Reiss and Wiltz, 2001). This is the American dream, acquiring fame with little to no work at all. And what better way to do it than on television?

Some of the most popular television shows in today’s society are The Biggest Looser, Jersey Shore, and Big Brother. These programs and many others are classified as reality television. Reality television’s main purpose is to attempt to portray ordinary people in unscripted situations. Recently, however, many of these shows have achieved in creating the complete opposite, and have earned an immense amount of criticism as a result. Reality television programs are detrimental to society because they influence bad behavior among teenagers, do not produce authentic real life situations, and they humiliate many of the characters.

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