Describes how the media has negatively impacted youth.

1. Lily Clark

2. • In the last thirty years, the media
has been completely transformed.
• For example, it was only twenty five
years ago that the World Wide Web
was made. Now, in 2014 there are
new websites being made everyday
(there are over 555 million websites).
• There are so many ways that
negative messages can be spread.
• For example, a social network is a
goldmine for negative posts and they
have completely blown up in the last
decade; in 2011 a survey showed that
60% of all Canadians are online social
networking which is 32% more than it
had been in 2010.

3. • Today’s youth dedicate too much of their time to the media.
•The things that they are seeing, listening to, and reading about in the media are
negatively influencing them. Examples of the different types of media:
- Social Networks (Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr)
- TV/ Movies (drinking, drugs)
- Video Games (violence)
- Magazines (celebrity gossip)
• The media can make a child do anything. Something as simple as pressuring a
parent to buy the newest toy, or in more tragic situations:
• Girls will starve themselves in order to obtain the media’s unrealistic standard of
beauty.

4. • It makes them self conscious about their bodies, this is especially the case for girls.
They are constantly being berated by photo shopped images of beautiful, flawless,
stick thin celebrities in magazines and on the internet.
• Men are usually portrayed as being “manly” and often when they feel
emotional (ex. crying) they feel like they can’t express how they are feeling
because they are male.

5. • In TV shows or movies it often shows the characters doing things that would be
inappropriate for someone underage. When the media shows famous actors
using drugs and alcohol and engaging in violent behaviours, it influences kids to
follow in their footsteps.
In 2012, many arrests had been made across
the country as a growing trend of young
people had tried to copy “Project X”

6. • Teenagers are not obtaining the same social skills that the
generation before them had. Often times they would rather
talk behind a screen rather then talk with someone face to
face.

7. • Teenagers are up all night on
Facebook or are watching videos on
Youtube so they wake up exhausted
and not ready for school.
• It is so much easier now a days for
students to get distracted from doing
homework or studying.

8. • Two twelve year old girls from Wisconsin attempted to kill a friend of theirs.
• Their reason is because they wanted “Slender Man” to take them to his
home.
• The girls became obsessed with the made up figure after watching videos
and reading stories about him.
• The issue with the media is that it is difficult to sort what is fantasy and what
is real.
• There have been reports that the two girls were mentally unstable, but it is
what they read about in the media that influenced their violent behaviour and
ultimately their motive to kill their friend.
• Media is a big contribution to people becoming desensitized.
*A second “Slender Man” stabbing has occurred.

9. • There need to be more guidelines with content in the media so that
parents have a better control on what their children are looking at.
• Parents should be more educated on how youth are influenced.
• Also educating youth on what they need to be more critical on what they
read and see in the media.
• The different mediums should be encouraged to represent all different
types of people rather then to just sticking to one type; beauty comes in all
shapes and sizes.

10. • Do you think that it would be better for the well being of our youth to grow up in
a society that was not influenced at all by media?
• What is it about violence in movies and video games that is appealing to so many
youth?
• Should governments act to control the Internet or should it be uncensored?