Suicide Websites Teens
Suicide ranks third among the leading causes of death for young people in the United States, is the Media to blame?
It is hard to count suicide attempts because they are not studied in the hospital. Many of the young people the attempt suicide have psychological problems like depression or a substance abuse problem, some even have both. A person who commits suicide normally has gone through something very hard to deal with, or has many feelings of neglect in their lives. When one considers the persons personal life, it seems that the medias influence was there at the right time and right place, causing the depressed person to think suicide as the right way.
Studies show websites such as Bebo and Myspace are becoming a suicide influence. On these sites teens are able to post anything they want. Teens post their feelings and thoughts about everything. The sites of the people who committed suicide, had many statements that no one took seriously. Friends of teens who committed suicide made a new page of dedication for them. Anyone could view these pages, it is almost as if they were praising the suicide victim. More suicides were committed by teens seeing this page as a chance to be seen. When they died they too were put up on this page. Parents soon complained to the companies to take down these pages that were “praising” the suicide victims.
Suicide is happening all around the world. Media may not be the cause for many people's suicides, but it is definitely a major factor. The news talks about local suicides, the movies show people committing suicide, and everyone watches these things. Showing suicide in a film should not be right. People all around the world see these images, and the wrong people will copy these things.
Early sexual intercourse among American teens is a major problem. According to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 61% of all high school seniors have had sexual intercourse, about half are currently active, and 21% have had four or more partners. There are many studies that show televisions powerful influence on teens sexual attitudes, values, and beliefs. Teens are very vulnerable to what they let influence them. In film, TV, and music, sexual messages are becoming more explicit in dialogue, lyrics, and behavior. More often than not the message they portray is a false unrealistic, and misleading love that teens accept as fact. Teens have said that media is second to sex education programs as their source of information about sex.
American media is said to be the most sexually suggestive in the Western Hemisphere. The average teen will see nearly 14,000 sexual references per year, but only 165 of these references will deal with birth control, self-control, abstinence, or the risk of pregnancy or STDs. Even the TV channels said to be watched during “family hour” has an average of more than eight sexual incidents. MTV, a pop music channel often displays suggestive sexual imagery. Experimental studies have shown a correlation between early or risky teen behaviors and viewing music videos. With almost everything that we turn on these days some sexual comment or innuendo will be said. Advertisements on the TV use a lot of sexual imagery. Sex is used to sell many things such as shampoo products, to hotel rooms.
From an early age we are bombarded with images and messages which inform us that in order to be successful and happy, we must be thin. Just turning on the TV or opening a magazine we can see how obsessed we are as a society with being thin. Dieting is one of the biggest advertisement markets. There are new ways to lose weight in days every single day. The average U.S woman is 5'4” and weighs 140 pounds. The average U.S. model is 5'11” and weighs 117 pounds. The people in the magazines and on the TV shows become role models for people. Celebrities have many different sorts of problems, one of them being eating problems. Yet all around the world teens look up to them and admire them and want to be “just like them”. Some teens get so caught up into being thin, they start to stress over their body fat, and their looks that they soon become uncontrollably obsessed. Once a person has become insecure about their own bodies, they turn to someone else they want to be like. Constantly seeing “perfect” models and celebrities in all the media, an insecure person thinks they must be just like them. In order to be just like their role models, they try every diet plan. Many teens or young adults turn to binging, or not eating as an escape from something. A person who is so obsessed with having the perfectly skinny body, becomes uncontrollable, and cannot change their view of their own bodies. When everyone around that person sees they are really skinny, to themselves they still seem “fat”. It becomes a never ending cycle that they cannot break.
79% of teenage girls who vomit and 73% of teenagers who use diet pills are frequent readers of Women's Health and Fitness magazines. Four out of five women are dissatisfied with their bodies appearance. The “pop culture” tells us over and over their ideas of thinness through their conversations, judgments, and teasing of their peers or family members. How are teenagers who hear this every day supposed to think highly of themselves, when everyone else seems so perfect? Magazines and television have become what teens turn to as their influence in fashion, and looks.
Many television shows, and action movies have lots of violence in them. Teens and young children are being exposed to many different forms of violence from the media. By the time a child is 18 years old, he or she will see 200.000 acts of violence including 40,000 murders. When viewing violence in movies regularly, one becomes less sensitive to it and those who suffer. When children start watching violent shows and movies, and play violent video games, it starts to become normalized.
Media violence may put a thought of the world being a bad place in children's heads. Violence soon becomes the answer to solving problems in life. When a person thinks the world is a bad place then he or she starts having hostile feelings towards everyone. A person who has normalized violence in their movies will soon see it as normal in real life situations. Researchers cannot really say specifically if media really is the culprit for these violent acts, or if the person already is violent, and watching violent movies. The Media says their movies and shows do not directly cause real-life violence. No one suggests that watching media violence is the only reason someone commits violent acts. But it is one risk factor for youth violence. The influence of violence can lead teens to think it is okay.
Teen Health and the Media, http://depts.washington.edu/thmedia/view.cgi?section=medialiteracy&page=fastfacts
Media facts, http://www.commonsensemedia.org/resources/media_facts.php
Teenagers and the Media, http://www.questia.com/library/communication/teenagers-and-the-media.jsp
The Effects Media Has on Teenagers Body Image, http://teens.lovetoknow.com/The_Effects_Media_Has_on_Teenagers_Body_Image
Study: Half of All Teens Have Had Oral Sex, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/09/15/AR2005091500915.html
Facts About Teen Suicide, http://www.youthnoise.com/page.php?page_id=721
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