The Effects of Media on Juveniles in Today's Society Research Paper

The Effects of Media on Juveniles in Today's Society - Research Paper Example In this regard, the current essay aims to explore the effects of media on juveniles in contemporary society. The term media is explicitly defined as â€Å"communication channels through which news, entertainment, education, data, or promotional messages are disseminated. Media includes every broadcasting and narrowcasting medium such as newspapers, magazines, TV, radio, billboards, direct mail, telephone, fax, and internet† (Business Dictionary, 2012). Due to the expansive channels within which various kinds of information, promotions, public announcements, campaigns and propaganda available, it is inevitable that people from all age groups could be influenced by them. However, due to the nature of juveniles’ development stage where curiosity and the need to explore is predominantly manifested, media provides significant effects both on the positive and negative side on juveniles in today’s society. According to Clay (2003), â€Å"no electronic mediums effects are all good or all bad; its the content that makes all the difference† (p. 40). Television, for example, has been widely researched in terms of its negative impact on children’s development. The Media Awareness Network (2010) has noted that â€Å"how much impact TV has on children depends on many factors: how much they watch, their age and personality, whether they watch alone or with adults, and whether their parents talk with them about what they see on TV† (par. 2). The impact of television ranges from exposure to violence that increases preponderance to aggressive behavior; decreased learning performance due to excessive watching; contributory factor to obesity due to lack of time spent for physical activities; and exposure to sexual content (Media Awareness Network, 2010). On the other hand, the most prolific medium used by juveniles today, the internet through social networking sites provide the following effects: increased tendencies for Internet