The Influence of Mass Media on Children and the Family
Mass media is a kind of communication that reaches a large number of people in short time via an impersonal medium between the sender and the receiver. Some types of mass media include print media, such as newspapers, magazines and books, screen media, like television, movies, videos and video games, and audio media, including radio, and popular music. More recently, digital media, encompassing the internet, multimedia devices, and games or applications has become much more popular. Mass media can have a big impact on children and families in every aspect of their lives. Some of these influences are positive, while others can be negative, but the goal for families must be to take advantage of the good impacts and to try to minimize the negative ones.
People do not use print media as much these days, but it still has a big impact on children and the family. The most useful type of print media is books. Books are the most valuable gift to give to children because they help in literacy development and play an important role in teaching history, passing on cultures, values, ideals and attitudes. Other kinds of print media include magazines, which can appeal to any age group and can contain many different messages essential to shaping the worldview of teens and older children. For example, National Geographic Kids teaches children about animals, science, and the world. It is inspirational and contains fun activities to inspire children to explore nature around them. On the other hand, magazines like Seventeen or J-14 can appeal to tween and teen girls and expose them to concepts and ways of thinking that may be inappropriate or even sexist. They can make girls think they should prioritize things like fashion and boys over things that determine their future, like their schoolwork. Teenagers take advice from magazines such as relationships, appearance, body images, and their personal life, often leaving girls with the understanding that physical beauty is the key to happiness and having approval of peers (The Kaiser Family Foundation, 2004). What is important is that parents are always aware of what children are reading, and leave things open for discussion when there are questions.
The most common and accessible platform of mass media is screen media. The time children are spending on screen media has increased in the past 5-10 years, as shown in numerous Kaiser Family Foundation Studies (The Kaiser Family Foundation, 2005). Young children are increasingly exposed to screen time; a 2006 study in the USA demonstrated that 58% of children under 3 watch TV everyday and 30% have a television in their bedroom. The National Institute of Health’s Medline Plus and the American Academy of Pediatrics report that the average kid spends 3 hours per day watching television and 5-7 hours total on screen (American College of Pediatricians, 2016). This has led to many parents worrying about the effect of this screen time on their children and family. Screen media can be good in its ability to expose children to a variety of educating channels in both science and in how social relationships should look like. Movies can also be very educational in moral values and in artistic inspiration. However, the ability of screen media to educate can cause very negative effects on impressionable children. Often, TV dramas do not show what healthy relationships should look like, and if teens and children have access to these examples, they may end up mimicking them in real life. This is why there should always be good communication about why characters in TV shows do the things they do, and what they can lead to in real life.
From a very young age, children are exposed to music in school and everywhere they go. As they grow older, they have the chance to experience whatever types of audio media they want. According to reviews of the research on popular music, children’s interest in rock music accelerates in the fifth or sixth grade, and by early adolescence, teens listen to recorded music from 2 to 5 hours each day. Pop music provides a certain culture that teens can identify with, allowing them to conform to a certain group and look up to a group or performer as a role model, especially when real positive role models are lacking in that teen’s life. It is all part of the experimental adolescent identity (American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, 2011). This can manifest itself into negative choices in the teen’s life. Often, performers show a persona that is not ideal for teens to emulate. Music and audio media can provide inspiration and allow teens and children to find a way to express themselves and find their identities through this art. However, there are downsides in this ability for music to affect them. For example, violent music can often lead to aggressive thoughts and feelings, and teens can get into harmful social behavior and substance abuse when trying to act like their favorite artists. It is important that families view music as an art, and help their children and teens to see that it can be appreciated while also maintaining a healthy identity of oneself unrelated to the group or singer (American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, 2011).
The type of media that has become extremely popular over the past twenty years is digital media. It has allowed people all over the world to use the internet and to stay in touch with news, social trends, and information. It has created a global revolution in developed societies, giving people of all nationalities the ability to communicate along this intricate web and to have any information they need at their fingertips. However, the accessibility of digital media means children and teens have more freedom online than ever, and although they create a lot of the online world they spend time in, it can also create them. Although there is a lot of discussion on the many dangers that come from the internet and spending time online, there is also much to be said about the positives in this revolution. Children and teens have more access to information than ever before, and they can use this as an educational aide, as done in many schools. Most research is done online in wide databases that make studying extremely efficient. Also, the amount of free tutoring videos on websites like KhanAcademy and YouTube help students in high school and college understand things they may have missed in class. Also, services like Apple’s FindMyiPhone allow parents to track locations of their teens, because they always have their phones with them and are connected to the internet. Although teens might be mature enough to be online and to know what websites are safe, it is not the same case for children. Children as young as 5 now often have their own electronic devices to play games on, and they can access websites meant for adults. Children are at risk for “accessing areas that are inappropriate or overwhelming, being exposed to online information that promotes hate, violence, and pornography, being misled and bombarded with intense advertising, or being invited to register for prizes or to join a club where they are providing personal or household information to an unknown source” (American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, 2011). Often, iPad games are very addictive and targeted toward young children who may spend an average of 2 hours and 19 minutes a day on their tablets. Because parents are busy, they often use tablets as a babysitter or pacifier, getting the children addicted to it from a young age.
Because mass media can affect children and teens in so many ways, it can be tempting for parents to ban it all from their household. However, it is important to remember that mass media connects us to the rest of the world and parents should lead their children in using mass media responsibly and safely, not sheltering them from it. To do this, parents should pay attention to what media their children are consuming on a regular basis and have conversations with them about the dangers online. They should stay engaged with them and make an effort as a family to discuss what they see in movies, music, or video games. Screen time should be reduced, though, and this can be done by encouraging children to pursue hobbies that include making art, playing a sport or instrument, or simply exploring the outdoors. The impact of media largely depends on how media is used. The relationships between children, teens, and even parents with media should never become obsessive. It is a good idea to have no-screen times for the whole family, bringing them together to talk about their days. The American College of Pediatrics has an online Family Media Use Plan that can be used by parents to plan how media will be used in their home, creating times for the family to agree on putting away their devices and looking up to see the world (American College of Pediatricians, 2016).