The Negative Effects Of Reality Television On Teens And Adolescents

Reality Television is a relatively new phenomenon that has exploded over the last several years. Whether it has to do with an “extreme makeover” or finding the supposed love of your life, reality television has given us the opportunity to become voyeurs in others’ lives. Approximately, 50% of television audiences are watching reality shows (Webster University). Long gone are the days of whole television programs. Today, most reality shows depict women as an object, only defined and valued by their sexuality. What kind of message is this sending to young girls? The purpose of this study is to show that reality television can have a negative effect on teenage girls. This matters because it can lead to the sexualization of young girls.

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.

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.

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.

In the media, reality TV stars like Snooki and Kim Kardashian are on the rise. Most channels on television have at least one reality show, from following housewives to remodeling homes of real life families. However, there are some reality programs that display bad examples, especially for young audiences that are keeping up with each episode. On MTV people see girls being drunk in public, addicts doing drugs, and young girls raising babies at young ages; these are situations seen on reality TV shows. Jeremy W. Peters’ “When Reality TV Gets Too Real” and James Poniewozik’s “Why Reality TV is Good for us” inform readers about what the general public can view on television and how it affects the minds of children. Reality TV shows such as

The Real Housewives series along with discouraging education and encouraging marrying rich also instills a sense of materialism into you girls. By watching these women in their mid-late forties and beyond live outlandish, material bases lifestyles, it motivates young girls to strive for this lifestyle. The show also glorifies the divorce process. With the majority of the women on the show being divorced, it makes young women think that even then they can still be “successful” without having to work to attain it. These women, even after their divorces still live very comfortable lifestyles. The message this sends to young girls is problematic because they believe that their success is then measured by the man whom they marry, not by the merit of their own educational and occupational accomplishments.

The average American teenager watches three hours of television a day. Scientist Rebecca Collins conducted a study to see if watching sexual behavior on TV influenced teenagers’ own behavior. In her results, she found that watching shows with sexual content has a considerable

Today while watching a movie or television show on cable, there were four to five minute breaks of commercials. Most of these commercials consisted of new reality shows. If they were not new, then it was the dates for when they old shows would make a comeback and start another season. Reality television has been in our lives since the 1940s. Although, the shows that were on years ago were much less vulgar than they seem to be now. It appears reality television continues to go down the wrong road. It is seen in many popular reality shows where the characters are almost getting praised for the bad behavior that they show on camera. This is important to know because it is has become a very popular thing for many people to watch, especially young teens. This gives the people in the shows the opportunity to be a role model for teens who might be looking elsewhere other than parents or peers for someone to look up to. It has also been shown that more teens would be interested in signing up to be on a reality show for the chance to gain fame by just about living their life. Reality television has done more harm than good to our society. For the most part, the shows today are showing more things that effects our teens in a more negative way. This left me with the question on does reality television really affect us? There are positives and negative effects on its viewers as well as the effect is has had on the culture of today’s society.

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.

Shows like Keeping Up With the Kardashians, The Bachelor and The Real Housewives have been taking the country by storm with the unscripted, outrageously unpredictable stories of ordinary people from around the country. Americans spend thirty three percent of their free time watching television and sixty seven percent of the shows are reality television (Reality Television:a Shocking Statistic). The average American watches five hours of television a day, that means they spend three and a half hours a day watching reality television. This shows that reality television is affecting everyone's everyday lives. Reality television is harmful to our society because it promotes stereotypes, it leaves a lasting impression on young susceptible minds,

Women on reality television shows are often overly sexualized. Over forty percent of prime time reality television contains sexual content (Swantek). This stereotype and the increasing amount of sexual content exposed have an impact on younger female viewers. Girls are taught from a very early age by the media that their attractiveness determines their value. This is proven by a study the Girl Scout Research Institute performed.

We (Teens) are getting exposed adult content, including, alcohol, drugs and coarse language at younger and younger ages. Reality television has become a popular cultural phenomenon in modern day society. It has become a culture people aspire to be a part of, to a life of

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).

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 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