Children of the Media's Influence

The media exists in more forms than is widely understood. Sure, information can be spread through television, social media, websites, and newspapers, but the spread of information goes beyond that. From the moment a person wakes up in the morning and checks their phone, text messages and notifications alert the person of what has happened in the world since they have fallen asleep. As you hop into your shower, the music coming from your phone may be delivering advertisements in between songs, and even in the songs, information and opinions are being delivered. When you go into the kitchen and see your parents, they may tell you what they have heard lately in conversation. At school or work, meetings and classes spread information to you, things you have or haven’t heard before. No matter where you turn during the day, the media is inescapable and present everywhere, meaning it affects almost every person. Growing up in a world with the rise of technology and social media, my generation has faced an incredible shift in world communications and what is defined as globalization. People around the world in different countries are able to connect in ways never seen before. Attending sleep-away camp as a child, I could go home and send emails to those I met in Australia, France, and Morocco. We could communicate about different topics, and answer each other’s questions about our specific cultures. Faster than a letter, easier than a phone call, texts, emails, and social media posts were ways I could see what my friends were up to during the school year we were apart. I stayed close with my friends during the school year, which made the hugs so much tighter in July because we never forgot who we were. Without these fast connections, I would have never been able to explain the lives of my friends from thousands of miles away to those around me who asked. The Boston Bombing. The Parkland School Shooting. The Ariana Grande Manchester Bombing. The November 2015 Paris Terrorist Attacks. The Sandy Hook School Shooting. Countless terrible attacks occurred throughout my childhood, while my worldview was being formed. Outside of the small town of Shrewsbury, Massachusetts, life was not as rosy as I saw on Disney and Nickelodeon. The more a child becomes aware, the more opinions they begin to form. What I thought was a world of friendship and kindness, turned into something to fear when outside of what you know. When the Boston Bombing happened when I was a child, I was at the race that day and watched the runners make their trek into Boston. When I got home, the television was on non-stop for three days, as the search for the terrorists ensued. I asked my parents what was happening, and for the first time in my life, they were not the omniscient people I had always thought them to be. They had no answers, along with the people on T.V. I had never been affected as much in my life as being eight years old, and watching terrorists attack the city so close to me. The media put fear into my eight-year-old self and made me question what I had known about the world around me. Even with all of the negative events I remember watching on television in my most formative years, I can also remember being a child, sitting at the kitchen table drinking chocolate milk, watching artists be interviewed on Good Morning America- specifically Katy Perry and Taylor Swift. Videos such as “Charlie Bit My Finger” on YouTube, and internet trends like “The Dress” (it was definitely blue and black), were topics my friends and I could giggle about because we all knew about it due to its prevalence in our lives. We were the first generation to grow up with modern technology and trends. While the media negatively impacts so many people today, it also gives so many people hope and connections to others. While talking about the negative effects of something so broad as this topic, mentioning the good is also integral. When the pre-teen years hit, Instagram was booming bigger than ever. Being eleven years out at the height of the popularity of trends like the “whip and nae nae” and posting pictures of Starbucks on your page defined who I was during those awkward years. All I wanted was to fit in with the other girls, but the difference between my generation and other generations was that we could fake it. No, I did not have all of the cutest clothes, but I could post pictures wearing some at the mall so I fit in. No, I did not like to wear eyeliner, but Snapchat filters fixed that right away. Nobody was a real version of themselves, online, all teenage girls were who they aspired to be. But, drawing the line between what was false and what was real became harder and harder as we based our lives around trends online. Seeing photos of girls wearing bikinis with picture-perfect bodies and no pimples made us doubt ourselves as little girls- but nobody would say it. I hated my flabby thighs, my braces, the way my stomach rolled, and everything else possible about my pubescent body- all because of these models. We never knew how heavily edited they were, all we teen girls knew was that they were what we were meant to look like, and the way we looked was nowhere close to the idea of beauty shown. Today, I think about my insecurities and fears, and almost everything I see is rooted in things I grew up with. I do not fear the dark because I have my phone flashlight and I can facetime a friend, but I fear eating out with friends because bigger people do not look good in Instagram posts. I am not insecure about my clothing because I can always text a friend and ask if it looks good, but I am insecure about talking about politics as a woman because no matter how much I have studied the media and I have paid attention, there is always somebody who has paid closer attention to the news and can outlast me in a debate. Every aspect of everyone’s life has something to do with the media’s influence. My generation will never know what it is like to grow up in a world without instantaneous connection to anything we want to know, or to anyone we want to speak to. The way the modern media affects a person depends on how they were raised, in what area they were raised, and how they continue to conduct themselves in the future while paying regard to the positive parts of generations raised without the media. The human race will never live in a media-free world, but the way in which society decides to move forward with the media will dictate how democracy and social constructs appear in the future.