How Pop Culture Affects Teens

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Media

Movies and Television have influenced Teenagers for years. Whether it is a matter of seeing a movie character doing drugs, drinking alcohol, or even smoking a cigarette. In fact Medical News Today has done a study with 600 films and 5,000 students and has found out that movies play an important role in a teenager's decision to drink at a young age.

"Each year that kids delay experimenting with alcohol can help them avoid some of the serious consequences that drinking at a young age can contribute to, including drinking and driving and alcohol dependence," said the lead author of the study Dr. James Sargent, professor of pediatrics at DMS. "This study is aimed at the prevention of early alcohol use and our hope is that parents of young children become more aware that drinking in films is common and that seeing these depictions can lead to early experimentation with drinking."

This really shows how a two movie or even a 30 second commercial can really make an impact on a teenager growing up. They know drinking underage is wrong but when they see it in movies or on TV they think it looks fun.

Alcohol isn't the only problem that results from movies. Smoking is also a big problem as well. Even when it is in the movie as casual as can be it can still implant a message in the viewer's brain.

According to WebMD, "teens are twice as likely to have early sexual intercourse as those who are rarely exposed to sexual content" And the movies try to put sex or sexual situations in their movies as much as possible because of the term "sex sells".

It is a matter of pop culture. Teens decided what they wear, what music they listen to, how they talk, what kind of people they hang around, what they drink(alcoholic or not), what they eat(or in some cases don't eat), and many other factors. They can see their favorite fun loving pirate asking "why's the rum gone?" and suddenly start thinking "I love pirates a lot. Maybe I should try rum if they do" This is just one example of the media's influence on teenagers. Teenagers seem to be brainwashed from either movies or television. But for more information about researches on these subjects check out the pages I received all this information from in our references page.



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