Jessica Carter, Royal Reporter

Jessica Carter

“Perceptions projected by social media and other sources can alter a child; influence them entirely more than his or her own guardians… be careful” – Anonymous

The collective and cultural perception of beauty, happiness, achievement and so on is often adopted and furthermore accepted by the common individual (under the reigning subjection). Social media, peers, and even parenting often project the schemas onto adolescence and deter their own views and bias upon the matters of beauty, et cetera. Has the projections conditioned the population to think and feel, to even live a certain way?

Now, the nature vs. nurture battle regarding opinion and such is an ongoing battle, as collected information is rarely conclusive. However, we do know that culture and environment shape our customs and behaviors, therefore influencing our perceptions. So to clear your mind and pretend this is a “nurture” issue, click here.From such an early age it is hard to imagine these young ones’ opinions are installed from birth. The idea that it is an innate opinion of these gender roles denotes our race entirely. Even if it were true, we know the influences of big time media and businesses can change that, exclusively. So, later in life, these kids will either sustain their said opinions, adjust them, or be changed my extrinsic motivations, (as intrinsic enthusiasm is not frowned upon, though suppressed often.) Bots of classical and operant conditioning, the submissive or unaware populaces are strengthened or punished behaviorally on a day to day basis upon various subjects.

On a conscious level, 78% of teens reported to CBC news on a distributed pole in 2001 – that they did not feel the weight of any pressing perceptions. But when asked particular questions, such as “What do you see as more successful, a clinical psychologist or nurse?” Obviously one will reply with the ‘long worded and scientific sounding title’. A century ago, a successful person was one whom had a family, income and dignity – Nowadays a high pay rate is the most regarded attribute. To attain such “needed characteristic” one must come from a wealthy home, attend a wealthy university or college, and then get a job that sounds wealthy, wealthy, and probably wealthy. Realistic? Give me a break. Not every child has these opportunities, and they are therefore subjected to criticisms, for the reason that the offending people are conditioned to react as such. Moreover, when shown a photo of an anonymous woman dueled with a picturesque version of herself slathered with the affects of photo booth, the majority of responses found the unrealistic woman desirable. Is it natural to have a 32” waist and 42” bust? Indeed not, but it’s the goal of most teen girls, who join the adolescence that have been conditioned since early age.

A 1995 study at the University of Maryland studied the phenomenon of the idealization of celebrities amongst several cohorts of teen and pre-teen groups including kids 10 to17years of age. The studyproduced results indicating that every age examined evidenced some degreeof idolization and modeling behavior related to the media created celebrities that were included in the study. The highest degree of idolization and modeling behavior however was noted in the age group of 10-11 year olds. The study suggests that idolization is a developmentally appropriate response to being a child, and certainly this is as true today as it has ever been. This psychological phenomenon was termed ‘narcissistic idealism’ by Kohut who believed that adolescents engaged in this process in order to compensate for the narcissistic injury of the inevitable failure of one’s parents to live up to their child’s lofty needs and desires. Knowing this, it may or may not be innate to idolize and idealize as a child, if so; the media has surely taken advantage of this and turned it into a business fueling characteristic.

A new report suggests exposure to significant levels of television and other electronic media during the teenage years may influence depressionduring young adulthood — especially among men. The report can be found in the February issue of Archives of General Psychiatry, one of the JAMA / Archives journals. Depression, the leading cause of non-fatal disability worldwide, commonly begins in adolescence or young adulthood, according to background information in the article.

“The development of depression in adolescence may be understood as a biopsychosocial, multifactorial process influenced by risk and protective factors including temperament, genetic heritability, parentingstyle, cognitive vulnerability, stressors (e.g., trauma exposure or poverty) and interpersonal relationships,” the authors write.

Brian A. Primack, M.D., Ed.M., M.S., of the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, and colleagues used data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Adolescent Health (Add Health) to determine exposure to electronic media among 4,142 adolescents who were not depressed at the beginning of the study in 1995.The teens were asked how many hours they had spent during the last week watching television or videocassettes, playing computer games or listening to the radio (the survey was conducted before DVDs or the Internet became widely used). They reported an average of 5.68 hours of media exposure per day, including 2.3 hours of television, 0.62 hours of videocassettes, 0.41 hours of computer games and 2.34 hours of radio. Seven years later (at an average age of 21.8), participants were screened and 308 (7.4 percent) had developed symptoms consistent with depression.

“In the fully adjusted models, participants had significantly greater odds of developing depression by follow-up for each hour of daily television viewed,” the authors write. In addition, those reporting higher total media exposure had significantly greater odds of developing depression for each additional hour of daily use.” – Brian A. Primack

Every day, adolescence, rather, people of all ages are shown perceptions via internet. Assuming you are familiar with YouTube, here are some shocking facts (picture found here, click to find more pictures upon common topics).

Launching into the proven influences of social media and pressures towards adolescence, it would be a good start to creep into the confines of their brain. The prefrontal cortex, found generally behind your forehead, is the seat ofplanning complex cognitive behavior, personality expression, decision making and moderating social behavior. The basic activity of this brain region is considered to be orchestration of thoughts and actions in accordance with internal goals. Cool, eh? What isn’t so cool is that the prefrontal cortex is not fully developed until around the age of 25. By the age of 25, the average person is exposed to over 4 million advertisements, persuasions, posters, and any other styles behavior modeling media. (Fact was found here). Without being able to functionally consider our own actions, behaviors and views, some probably substitute the empty reasoning’s with whatever is presented to them. So if you didn’t clue in- all adolescence are likely, if not ACTUALLY influenced entirely by media conditioning, even then into what we consider “adult hood”, people are still heavily influenced. Perhaps they (whomever “they” applies to) should heighten the age that which adult hood is applied. Perhaps the world needs to have a sit down and discuss the corruption we see and experience on a daily basis.

Enough said.