Question

This goes without saying; the media plays a monumental role in shaping morals, values, and behaviors in our society. In this particular day in age, social media has rendered itself a very powerful socializing agent, especially in our youth. Adolescents are particularly susceptible and sensitive to the messages that the media "sends", thus becomes internalized and imprinted in the teenage psyche. Look through some popular social media sites (i.e. Instagram, Snapchat, whatever other media outlet that's out there). Choose a celebrity or popular user page to scroll through. What values do their posts espouse? What do they "market" as beautiful, masculine, feminine, and ideal in our society? Please discuss in two paragraphs how these images shape self-esteem and overall social-emotional development in adolescents. Be sure to identify which social media page you used OR describe the image or attach the image (make sure to include the web course) to your discussion AND explain why you chose i

Answer 1

This goes without saying; the media plays a monumental role in shaping morals, values, and behaviors in our society. In this particular day in age, social media has rendered itself a very powerful socializing agent, especially in our youth. Adolescents are particularly susceptible and sensitive to the messages that the media "sends", thus becomes internalized and imprinted in the teenage psyche. This in fact does tend to shape how the teenagers, especially women tend to look at themselves and the society through a particular lens. This lens is therefore given to them by the society which tends to reinforce such social media posts of celebrties promoting a certain way of being/living/looking, etc. Children nowadays start experiencing peer pressure from a very young age. The reason is that early exposure to social media handles promotes frustration and social comparison every now and then. Some of the models, especially the ones walking ramps, hollywood/bollywood celebrities tend to post their holiday pictures, workout routines, party pictures and videos on a regular basis. Since people across nations tend to be fascinated by celebities, they tend to fantacize them and attempt to look/behave/act/feel like them. This puts across pressure related to how a person must be presented, include their dressing sense and the way their body must look (thin frame and sculpted). This also opens channels to cyberbullying and fat-shaming etc for people who may not fit the narrow frame that the society envisions for them. In case of women, the recent eating disorders are mostly culminating from this pressure that the social media creates for them. For instance, anorexia nervosa or bulimia. They are noth psychological conditions and are created out of poor self-image and viewing oneself from a disorted lens. Many a times, celebrities too develop such conditions due to the pressure that is put upon them by the society. Fat shaming and bullying happens to them at an umimaginable scale which leads to such conditions and irreversible damage.