The Impact of Media: Teaching Teens to Think for Themselves

A good strategy is to use controversial content as an opportunity to discuss your family’s values and how to judge what’s right and wrong, what’s real and not. “Learning moments happen while the event is actually going on,” said Mitchell G., a father of three from Washington DC. Mitchell was watching a Washington Redskins football game with his sixteen-year-old son in which the team was mourning Sean Taylor, who had just been shot and killed. After the somber tribute, the network cut to a commercial for a violent video game with images of gunmen shooting at people. “My son and I just looked at each other and shook our heads. Here the NFL is trying to promote non-violence and the first thing they do is have an ad that does the exact opposite thing.” The irony of the situation got father and son talking about the casual way in which violence is portrayed on television, and how that translates to real life.

Clara G., a New York mother of four, agrees. “The minute my oldest daughter became computer literate, so did I. I feel that as a parent you cannot fall behind or you’re at a loss.” Recently, her seventeen-year-old daughter invited her to watch the MTV show “A Shot at Love with Tila Tequila,” a dating show about a bisexual woman. “That opened up a discussion where she asked for my opinion and let it resonate with her,” said Clara. “If you have a good dialogue then they’ll make good judgments even if you’re not there.”

Social Networking and the Messages Teens Give and Get
Interactive websites like MySpace, Facebook, and YouTube serve as the newspapers and gathering places for this generation, and teen members are riveted by the content they see and the content they share. The more media input many teens get, the more they crave, until the multi-tasking whirl of information is nothing so much as background noise.

“I can’t even go to sleep without my TV on,” said Clara’s son, Tory, age fifteen. His fourteen-year-old friend Derek O. agreed, “When I do my homework, I find that if I’m just focusing on my essay, I do worse because I’m so extremely bored. But I usually have my IM open and I have my music on so while I’m writing I can keep myself occupied.”