Teenagers and Plastic Surgery

Our generation today faces a lot of old and new influences that come from several different places. Whether it is social media, TV, or what your peers are in to, the decisions you make every day can change. One decision a lot of teens decide to make is to receive plastic surgery. Why exactly teenagers make this decision is left up to the individual, but with an increase of young people getting it done daily, one should become aware of the causes and effects. The success rate of these surgeries is not always high and lives could be irreversibly changed because some teens are making their decision based on what other people think and ignoring their own sense. Throughout this paper, I will examine the influence that the media and peers have on teenagers in order to discuss their role in motivating teenagers to want plastic surgery and why this life changing decision should not be influenced by the ideas instilled by a third party. The biggest, if not most severe, influence teens pay attention to is the media. Society itself has become almost brainwashed to follow current trends and base their lives off of what they see and watch on television. For example, the pop singer Rihanna can go get a new tattoo anywhere on her body and once the public finds out, there will be many female teenagers who will try to imitate this tattoo or get something similar. This may just seem like human nature but when the person is a celebrity; their actions are magnified and seen on a much bigger scale. According to Pediatric Annals, “Children and teenagers see approximately 25,000 to 40,000 ads per year on television alone. Combine that with billboards, Internet ads, magazine/news-paper ads, and radio ads, and young people are immersed in a commercial culture practically from infancy (Children). Not just one or two people saw it, but millions. The fact that celebrities and famous people