Very Involved Parents (VIP)

Since the beginning of the 21st century, the media industry has grown exponentially with the emergence of technology, right from the introduction of telegraph, newspaper, fax machine, television, DVD, emails, hand-phone and now the Internet. Every expanding society requires a lot of advanced mass media to relay important information from one party to another by enhancing the flow of communication effectively.

Media technology and communication is essential in our day to day activities, playing major role in our lives such as education, career advancement, traveling, personal relationship, health-care, entertainment, marketing of new products and services etc. We have rendered much faith on those media tools which have kept us close to all the happenings around the world such as entertainment, educational activities, world-wide political affair, global news, foreign market activities, global threats such as an intruding of a new virus, complex disease, poverty, corruption, racism, terrorism, war and many more.

Mass media has been playing an essential role in connecting us with the rest of the world. It kept us from being ignorant, not knowing on stuffs which are happening or had happened on the other side of the globe. Media has been successful in keeping us closely updated with the world’s hottest news everyday now which we are not able to achieve 100 years ago.

Today, the media makes billions of dollars by advertising new products for big companies and corporations.  We are largely exposed to these advertisements for it influence our buying decisions, by being more convinced and believed that products which we see from the newspaper and TV are better than others.  There are huge influences of the media on today’s teenagers, they tend to buy what they saw on TV and what their favorite actress or actors are advertising for, they are also being eagerly in the foot-steps of the latest fashion trend based on what they have been imposed by the media.

There are both good and bad influence of the media towards our young generations of today. Although I have to admit that media is inevitably one of the greatest necessity in our lives today, some of the negative effects which it has brought to the society today are something which the local authority, parents as well as the academic institutions should not be ignoring any longer.

Let me share some of the negative effect of mass media on teenagers which have change their conception, and preference on:

1. The exposure of sex images and excessive portraits of violence in movies and dramas have instilled negative thoughts and taboos in the mind of these teenagers for they have been consistently getting increased exposure to things which are not suitable for their age.
2. Thousands of advertisements on junk food, fast food, soft-drink, etc are shown on TV and heard over radio have indirectly lead to the grown of obesity and anorexia in teenagers. This is one of the critical global problem of today which is threatening our next generations for being unhealthy and being exposed to many serious diseases and sicknesses such as diabetes, high blood pressure, heart problem and anorexia.
3. Women are obsessive with losing weight even if they are not being fat or obese.   This is due to the influence of the media in portraying that successful women are always thin.  Many teenagers, especially girls were greatly influenced with the slim figure of their favorite celebrity. As a results, some of these teenage fans were so deep into the dieting and slimming concerns which lead them to severe health issues and fatal death in serious situation.

When young teenagers are exposed to the images of violence, the personality of these young teens tend to become more aggressive and traumatic in their characteristics over the long run. At the same time, the emergence and exposure of video games with war images and weapons have brought serious issue to the society, the school and the young children themselves.