Media’s Affect on Youths Youths today are constantly watching television shows. Some spend the majority of their free time sitting down on the couch and watching reality sitcoms such as “Jersey Shore” or “Big Brother”. This impacts today’s young greatly by teaching them negative behavior and language, making them insecure about their physical appearance and making sexuality more essential. Reality sitcoms have a greater impact on today’s youths then we would like to believe.
The negative language and behavior of youths is mostly being learned from these reality shows. Six major professional societies in the United States- the American Psychological Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, the American Medical Association, the American Academy of Family Physicians, and the American Psychiatric Association-… concluded [in 2000] that “the data point overwhelmingly to a casual connection between media violence and aggressive behavior in some children” (Anderson, Craig and Bushman, Brad 11-12). This comes from the fact that male and female equality has gotten much worse; most women are being viewed as something they are not when they are referred to as “bitches” or “sluts”. When this sort of name calling escalates it can lead to greater things such as a verbal or even physical fight, “Recent large-scale longitudinal studies provide converging evidence linking frequent exposure to violent media in childhood with aggression later in life, including physical assaults and spouse abuse” (Anderson, Craig, Berkowitz, Leonard, Donnerstein, Edward, Huesmann, Rowell, Johnson, James, Linz, Daniel, Malamuth, Neil, and Wartella, Ellen). On the show Jersey Shore, which has become very popular among youths lately, shows that beating up someone or verbally harassing someone is the only way to resolve a disagreement.