Mass Media and It's Effects

The mass media has the largest effect on this generation through computers, television, radio, and magazines. It affects the way we think, behave and interpret our surroundings. Since these four devices occupy a big part in our life, they also influence a part of it also. We are constantly having messages thrown at us from the media and these messages tend to circulate widely. A majority of these messages are telling us how we should dress, what we should physically resemble and several other things. Since we see messages like these so often they embed in our long-term memory. It is difficult to avoid letting the mass media play out in our lives since it is all around us whether it means in our home, through our peers, or community in general. It is almost impossible to even go a day without have some sort of mass communication object in our life.

"The average person spends about 1000 hours watching television each year. That's equivalent to watching 24 hours of television a day for six weeks straight." (2005, 02). The Effects of Television on Society: Study Mode. http://www.studymode.com/essays/The-Effects-Of-Television-On-Society-46266.html.) There are only 8765 hours in a year meaning that the average person spends over 10% of their life watching television. When people invest that much time in something, we cannot help but be effected by it. A large number of the shows we watch on television are casted with individuals similar to our age group so when people watch television shows, they feel as though what they are viewing is how they should be dressing and what their personality should be like. Acts like this mainly occur when we see people we idolize on television on a regular basis and have a desire to replicate them in ...

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... our minds of what we should look like which and since so many people fail to meet those standards it leads to several people having low self-esteem, or eating disorders. Since mass media popularity has grown so has the percentage of people who are unacceptable of themselves. If our generation realized the percentage of the unrealistic media we see, we would not have so many problems with what goes on in this generation. Less money needs to go to broadcasting this false information and to help solve the problems created from this information. Is it really worth jeopardizing the lives and mental state of others?

Works Cited

http://www.studymode.com/essays/The-Effects-Of-Television-On-Society-46266.html http://www.zainbooks.com/books/mass-communication/introduction-to-mass-communication.html http://www.raderprograms.com/causes-statistics/media-eating-disorders.html