Blog 3

This set of articles was definitely interesting. Today’s media is really concerning for younger people who live by social media. One quote that stood out to me in “Beyond Representation: Embodied Expression and Social Me-dia” was when they wrote, “Currently, digital media remix culture is one where “real life” (RL) and “virtual life” (VL) structures have migrated more fully from the desktop to otherly-mediated life worlds, and they occupy all states in-between. The space one occupies, for example, in the twitterverse, the term in common usage to describe the network engaged by the micro-blogging application Twitter, exemplifies such ambiguity and malleability” (Holloway 2). For many young people, social media can become almost addictive. Social networking plays a vital role in broadening teen social connections and views. While yes, it’s helping them learn valuable technical skills but it severely impacts the developing brains because of how extremely vulnerable they are and how much online time is spent. The youth often has difficulty self-regulating their screen time, risks increase which means they are more exposed to the things being posted on media. A lot of our youth are inspired by our giant pool of celebrities, models, athletes, and so fourth. It’s clear that these highly recognized individuals have such a huge impact on our youth with the massive amounts of followers these people have on their pages. Many might not know but this can cause young teens multiple issues. Things that may happen are things like –Anxiety
-Depression

-Low self-esteem

-Sleep deprivation

-Envy/Jealousy Communication issues

-Lack of socialization skills for teenagers

-Sadness

-Loneliness

– Dependence

With all the attention that these celebrities get on media makes youth believe that they have to look, dress, and act just as they do in order to receive the same love. Things like having a smaller waist, having bigger breasts, having a sharper jawline, having outlined muscles, or even just being taller will quote on quote “make you more attractive”.