Preview

Negative Influence of Social Media

Powerful Essays
Open Document
Open Document
1485 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Negative Influence of Social Media
Today, Mass Media is notoriously known to project a negative influence on teens and society. It manipulates several aspects of our lives including, but not limited to, the choices we make about our overall physical appearance, how we perceive beauty, healthy decisions we make regarding drug and alcohol use, engaging in premarital sex, and our peer and social interactions. We emulate what the media portrays as acceptable and desirable, though it goes against the norms and values put forth from society. As we mature, our goals and values seem to change as we break from the traditional values and connect with those portrayed as cool and current, through the media and pop culture. During adolescence, one often struggles with choosing between what is right from wrong and the media often accentuates the lives of celebrities. Young children are known to emulate their role models, unconscious of the consequences that may result in their actions. The media has been proven to be detrimental to the health and lifestyle of the youth. The media has a strong impact on the appearance satisfaction of today’s youth. Young women are constantly comparing their bodies to the ones seen advertised on television commercials. Around 10 million females and 1 million males in the United States are suffering from eating disorders such as anorexia, bulimia, etc. After seeing these beautiful and flawless models on billboards and advertisements, many women are disturbed with their personal body images. This is known to be a main contributor to eating disorders around the world. Thus, the media has the effect to change one's mental set up. “Beauty and Body Image in the Media” is an article that explains the negative affect the media has on young women and how they view themselves. Images of female bodies are seen in films, TV, magazines, ads, etc. These models are engraving the perfect body image into the minds’ of the youth. Women’s magazines are full of ads influencing women that if

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Powerful Essays

    Since the media portrays the perfect woman as flawless creatures that everyone adores, they feel forced to duplicate the projected body type in order to receive the same attention. The several styles of media such as printing advertisements, television and music tell the society things that may seem diverse but in actuality they are all projecting the same issues. Personally being a woman who struggles with weight issues the media has made it difficult for me to make life decisions independently due to its badgering approach for the pressure of the perfect body. I have chosen to focus on how much of an influence the media has on a women/ girls’ body image because I can relate to it and I know how many women out there struggle with body image issues. The knowledge I will gain in this topic will help me further understand how corrupt the media is which will lead to a better understanding to my patients I will have in the future as a high school counselor.…

    • 2978 Words
    • 12 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    Technology has become very advanced and very important to our society. One thing that has become very big because of our technology is social networking. There are many positives to having easy access to social media, but there are also negative effects as well. The impact of all this social media has overall a negative effect of our daily lives in society. In “‘r u online?’: The Evolving Lexicon of Wired Teens”, by Kris Axtman, Kris talks about how instant messaging has affected the communication of the younger people in our generation. In “Note To Selfie”, by John Dickerson, he writes about how people are pausing their lives to post about their happenings on social media. These two authors discuss some negative aspects to having social media…

    • 1277 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Unrealistic Body Image

    • 510 Words
    • 3 Pages

    The media is responsible for creating ideals about beauty and body image, it can influence self esteem and acceptance, but can cause major harm. The media tends to make people strive to achieve an unrealistic image of perfection, a stereotype of beauty, and have led to a decline in self acceptance. Teenagers learn what society deems beautiful mainly from the media, they are overwhelmed with photos, magazines, television and movies on what is considered the ideal body (“Body Image”). According to the article, “Recent studies have found that by the time a woman is seventeen years old, she has received more than 250,000 commercial messages through the media” (“Body Image”). The majority of the media today presents the perfect body to the public,…

    • 510 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Many things can affect one’s body perception such as peers and family but most importantly the influences within the media can have the biggest affect on how one sees themselves. In some ways people can control the social factors that negatively affect their body perception. However, the mass media is every where and can be hard to avoid. Past research indicates that by the time a girl turns 6 she is already dissatisfied with her body image (Hayes & Tantleff,2010). The social standards of today emphasizes the need for women to be thin and blemish free, setting a physical expectation of beauty that is beyond impossible to reach ( Tiggemann, 2003). It is said that media is the most influential…

    • 1894 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Better Essays

    Rhetorical Analysis

    • 1668 Words
    • 7 Pages

    In her article “Beauty is in the Eye of the Beholder; Body Image; Skinny on a Weighty Issue”, Meredith Baker points out that almost ten million Americans, mostly teenage and college-aged girls, are currently dealing with anorexia or bulimia. She blames the fashion and entertainment industries for contributing to the problem by showcasing celebrities and models that are unusually skinny. Baker then goes on to share her own experience with an eating disorder and how she overcame it. She believes the United States should follow France’s example and ban stick-thin models from all advertisements. She cites the fact that cultures that value full-figured women have fewer eating disorders and hopes that media outlets in the United States will also begin to provide more realistic role models in advertising. In Walter Vandereyckens article, “Media Influences and Body Dissatisfaction in Young Women”, he states that, “the influence of society and culture is putting young female adolescents at risk for developing an eating disorder”(Vandereycken 5). He discusses the cause-effect relationship between the idolization of celebrities with slim figures and low self-esteem and poor body images in teens. He emphasizes that with such unhealthy behavior, it is inevitable that adolescents would take necessary steps to achieve slim figures. Vandereycken argues that the mass media affects young adults differently based on sociocultural backgrounds and predisposed…

    • 1668 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Better Essays

    Negative Body Image

    • 1867 Words
    • 8 Pages

    A study showed that women experience an average of 13 negative thoughts about their body each day, while 97% of women admit to having at least one “I hate my body” moment each day (raderprograms). Teens today are faced with many pressures: how they dress, who their friends are, who they are going to date, and most importantly, what they look like. In today’s society, body image is more than just the mental picture a person has of what their body looks like. For many, body image is also a reflection of how they feel about themselves and their lives. People with a negative body image believe that if they do not look right, other things, such as their personality, intelligence, social skills, or capabilities, also are not right. They think that if they fix their bodies, all their other problems will disappear. This can result in unhealthy weight management practices and an unhealthy relationship with food. People excessively diet and exercise out of fear of gaining weight. The media today portrays stick thin women with beautiful faces and size 0 bodies, but the truth is, the majority of runway models meet the Body Mass Index (BMI) criteria to be considered anorexic (raderprograms). When influenced by role models like these, teenagers start to feel inferior if they do not look the same. In turn, when put under the pressure of women in the media, teenagers will most likely develop a negative body image, eating or mood disorder, or other unhealthy addictions if they feel their bodies do not “measure up” to those of women portrayed.…

    • 1867 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    To begin with, no one knows the true definition of beauty, but from a young age children start worrying about their appearance. One girl feels “being pretty or beautiful is the highest accolade, one that usually makes her parents proud; to be pretty is to be approved of, liked and rewarded”. She also mentioned that in “infancy, females are judged by standards of cuteness and prettiness and shifts with age into standards of beauty and glamour.” The media negatively affects young women with unrealistic body images presented or reflected by the media. This image forces us to have self-esteem issues. These advertisements are damaging both our mental physical state of being of many young girls who take extreme measures to live up to the Medias perception of the perfect body type.…

    • 507 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    How does the media influence our body image? In what forms, does the media influence our perceptions about our body? These were the two questions that I asked myself in order to do the research paper and the panel discussion. In my opinion, I would agree that the media does influence and promote women and men to believe that the culture's standards for body image are ideal. Hence, the phrases, "thin is in" and "the perfect body" are two examples of "eye-catching" headlines that I observed in many women magazines. I learned that the media influences us through television, fashion and health magazines, music videos, film, commercials, and various other advertisements. Sadly, as a result, this repeated exposure, the "thin" ideal, can lead many young girls in triggering eating disorders, depression, low self-esteem, stress, and suicide. After acquiring this relevant information, I decided to focus my research on what type of media influences elementary school children and the adolescent teenager. The three central types of media that I found that did indeed influence body image are: Fashion magazines, famous top-models and actresses, and teenage or young adult women in the music industry.…

    • 1263 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Women and Body Image

    • 3407 Words
    • 14 Pages

    Eleven million women in the United States suffer from eating disorders- either self-induced semi-starvation (anorexia nervosa) or a cycle of bingeing and purging with laxatives, self-induced vomiting, or excessive exercise (bulimia nervosa) (Dunn, 1992). Many eating disorder specialists agree that chronic dieting is a direct consequence of the social pressure on American females to achieve a nearly impossible thinness. The media has been denounced for upholding and perhaps even creating the emaciated standard of beauty by which females are taught from childhood to judge the worth of their own bodies (Stephens & Hill, 1994). To explore the broader context of this controversial issue, this paper draws upon several aspects on how the media influences young women's body image. This paper examines an exploration of the prevalence and the source of body dissatisfaction in American females and considers existing research that presents several important aspects regarding the nature of the connection between advertising and body dissatisfaction. From these distinctions, it will be shown that the media has a large impact on women's body image and that the cultural ideal of a thin body is detrimental to the American female's body perception that often results in poor eating pathologies.…

    • 3407 Words
    • 14 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    Several studies have shown that there are many ways in which a woman’s body image, eating patterns, and self-esteem is negatively affecting what audiences see and hear from the media. In 1996, an article titled, “Body Image: A Cognitive Self-Schema Construct, by Altabe and Thompson, indicates that “social endorsements” are inherent in how the media is portraying the “ideal body.” This has created a sense in women to examine the image of their body to determine if they need to radically alter their eating habits in order to offset that undesirable body. This, in turn, may have led to eating disorder. Also, Heinberg and Thompson (1995) indicated that females who were exposed to appearance-related media were less satisfied with their body shape than females who were exposed to non-appearance related…

    • 967 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Instead, they argue that the media talks about valuable information on health and people’s well being. They also discuss awareness of eating disorders, through magazines, articles, and television programs. Through the media, they educate people about the danger of abusing food and help them be aware that they are not alone in their journey. The media shows a variety of body shapes and sizes; it influences young people about accepting their weight, provides positive plus size role models. What actually affects the self-esteem of these girls’ stems from many causes that have nothing to do with the media’s influence. For example, internal issues, family pressure, and peer pressure can provoke an eating disorder. Not only do women feel pressure from the media to control their weight but also receive peer pressure from, their boyfriends, husbands, parents, family and from stores that carry clothes that only carry sizes that fit small petite girls. Also, if a girl is already lacks the necessary self-confidence that she needs, it would make it easier for these outside influences to make matters…

    • 845 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Body Image Standards

    • 774 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Perhaps no time in history have body image standards had such an enormous impact on society. With today's mass media people can be subjected to thousands of images and messages daily, portraying the "ideal" body image. The people most often portrayed and effected by these messages are young women. Females can feel constant pressure to live up to these ideals which are most often unattainable. This pressure can cause detrimental physical and mental states. To fully understand this problem we must first ask ourselves, "Why?" Why has the female body been pushed to the forefront of society and media? It is undeniable that it is merely a marketing ploy. The beauty sector is a multibillion dollar a year industry. Companies such as Revlon, Cover Girl, Maybelline, L'Oreal insist that girls must look a certain way if they want to be anything. These corporations are only concerned with the bottom line. They take no responsibility for the negative image that they portray, in fact, that is what they thrive on. The worse self-image a woman has, the more beauty products she will buy to try and "improve" her looks. And there is no better way to make her think she is ugly than to subject her to thousands of unrealistic, airbrushed pictures of models to compare herself to. This way of thinking is further drilled into the female mind through women's magazines such as Cosmopolitan, Vogue and so on. Never do you find an article entitled "Big is Beautiful". More often you will find "How to lose 20 lb.. so your man will love you!" sprawled across the cover of the latest issue. Occasionally magazines will run a heart touching article about an ex-models fight with bulimia. They will often forget to mention, however, that the same model was portrayed as the pinnacle of health and beauty on the cover of last years April issue. The beauty industry and magazines are not the sole cause of the problem though, there is plenty of blame to go around. And so we look to…

    • 774 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Tough Guise Gender

    • 553 Words
    • 3 Pages

    The media has allowed others to expect that all women must have a perfect body. Young girls are seeing these messages and trying to mold themselves into these bodies. After this assignment, I was able to reflect how the media’s portrayal affects women’s self-esteem. We strive for unreachable expectations that aren’t real. They cause harm to a young girl’s self-image. I was also able to realize that ads and popular songs objectify women in a disgusting manner. It is upsetting to realize how many young girls listen and see these types of ads and songs. It is horrible that so many people are actually taking these fake images into consideration and striving for that type of body. By watching these films and applying them to real life examples, it has allowed me to understand that these issues are greater than we…

    • 553 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    The effect on a woman’s self-image is one of the biggest problems, if not the biggest. The main problem with self-image is that women see themselves as sex objects. This is starting to start at a very young age. According to a study by Knox College in Galesburg, IL, girls as young as six are beginning to think of themselves as sex objects. This study was compiled by asking dozens of girls ages 6 to 9 to choose a doll that looked like themselves, that they wanted to look like, that would be most popular in school, etc. The study concluded that across the board, the girls chose dolls that have been termed “sexy dolls”. These dolls are dressed in tight, revealing clothing. It does not stop there. As these children grow older, young girls and teenagers start to develop an increasing concern with their weight and are unhappy with their bodies. They feel that they must start to look and act like these women they see on such shows as Flavor of Love or in magazines such as Playboy. Most studies have focused on the eating disorders that can arise from this form of objectification such as anorexia and bulimia. These studies have shown that since World War II, popular media has increasingly held up a thinner and thinner body image as an ideal for women. However, more recently the studies…

    • 1262 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Better Essays

    The influence the media has upon all of society can have positive and negative effects on the public. The effect the media has on adolescent girls in regard to body image has had negative impacts, such as an obsession with body weight and what the society views as the “perfect body”. The media can be seen as partly responsible for the pressure adolescent females’ face in consideration to body issues.…

    • 2596 Words
    • 11 Pages
    Better Essays