Yesterday's discussion on the way Teen TV influenced teenage behavior and values was certainly interesting. It sort of correlated to my subject for my research assignment so I decided to take a piece of my research to somewhat further the discussion and to illustrate something that seemed interesting to me. The article that I came across was written in 2001 by Elizabeth Lewis and was titled Imitations of Immortality.
The basic premise of the work is that adolescents are being taught not so much by their parents but by the media. The author alluded to the fact that when children are young they question their parents all the time and their parents have the opportunity to mold their minds and teach them about the nuances of life. The article then asserts that as the children get older, parents begin to have to compete with the media for the role of primary educator when it comes to the queries of their children. The article characterized the media as preying on the naturally inquisitive minds of children. This creates a phenomenon where TV and parents have to battle for the right to teach their children about societal behaviors, life, sex, drugs, alcohol and all of the other things that a young impressionable mind needs guidance in terms of.
It made me wonder, do parents have a chance against the influential abilities of some of the teen television that we discussed in class and that permeates television? Also, why does it seem that parents so consistently lose their grasp in terms of being the main molder of their children's minds? This may not be the case in every situation because many of us attested to the fact that we did not develop values from what we saw on TV growing up, but some teens certainly do. In those instances, what roles could parents and adult influences potentially play in terms of curbing the media's profound influence?
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