Influenta massmediei si a internetului asupra tinerilor- The influence of mass media and internet on today’s youth

Coordonator-Darabus Lavinia Sara

Mass media is an aspect of great importance in today’s life. It influences everyone, but the center of our presentation consists of highlighting the influences on children and teenagers. Childhood experiences are the most important in life. They represent crucial events which will shape the future adult’s personality and character.

         The current level of media saturation has not always existed. As recently as the 1960s and 1970s, television, for example, consisted of primarily three networks, public broadcasting, and a few local independent stations. These channels aimed their 


programming primarily at two-parent, middle-class families. Even so, some middle-class households did not even own a television. Today, one can find a television in the poorest of homes, and multiple TVs in most middle-class homes. Not only has availability increased, but programming is increasingly diverse with shows aimed to please all ages, incomes, backgrounds, and attitudes. This widespread availability and exposure makes television the primary focus of most mass-media discussions. More recently, the Internet has increased its role exponentially as more businesses and households “sign on.” Although TV and the Internet have dominated the mass media, movies and magazines—particularly those lining the aisles at grocery checkout stands—also play a powerful role in culture, as do other forms of media.

         What role does mass media play? While opinions vary as to the extent and type of influence the mass media wields, all sides agree that mass media is a permanent part of modern culture. We live in a society that depends on information and communication to keep moving in the right direction and do our daily activities like work, entertainment, health care, education, personal relationships, travelling and anything else that we have to do.

         A common person in the city usually wakes up checks the TV news or newspaper, goes to work, makes a few phone calls, eats with their family when possible and makes his decisions based on the information that he has either from their co workers, news, TV, friends, family, financial reports, etc. What we need to be aware of is that most of our decisions, beliefs and values are based on what we know for a fact, our assumptions and our own experience. In our work we usually know what we have to do based on our experience and studies, however on our daily lives we rely on the media to get the current news and facts about what is important or not. We have put our trust on the media as an authority to give us news, entertainment and education. However, the influence of mass media on our kids, teenagers and society is so big that we should know how it really works.

         Given the fact that we are a country which is constantly in a process of change, especially at the social and political levels, we can truthfully say that, throughout time in Romania, from the 1989 revolution until present, and more than ever before, the opinion of the press is taken much more into consideration. Post 1989 brought many changes in Romanian society, starting and ending with the political environment of the media.

         In Romania children and teenagers are introduced to mass media and the internet from a very early age. Children start watching television at the age of 1 year and a half and when they turn about 3, they can already use a computer and access the internet on their owns.

         Looking at the impact of mass media on youth, we can identify two opposing elements: opportunities and risks. Media brings opportunities to broaden children’s outlooks and provide more equal access to information, but it also threatens cultural identification and values.

         Around the world, the rising levels of aggression, substance abuse, eating disorders and unsafe sexual behavior among youth are increasingly attributed to commercial media aimed at children and youth. This is also the case for Romania, a simple glimpse at many cartoons for example is revealing: aggression, individuals are represented in many entertaining ways, at the expense of our children’s harmonious development of personality. An issue worth highlighting is that Romania being a developing country, and the resources often limit domestic productions, a majority of programs for children an youth are imported and unfortunately, this leads to distancing the children from their local culture, they are lured by the mass marketing messages into a world of consumerism and uniformity. What is worst, these productions being driven by profit, much of the content aims for the children’s most primary emotions and contains characters and messages that convey violent messages.

         There is a bright side of the television as well. The simple fact that it makes information much more interesting and appealing to the young generation. In Romania most students consider the classes in school boring. A teacher who shows the students documentaries and so on will surely get more attention than a teacher who just brings plain text to the lesson. Sadly, documentaries are not a main interest for the people who watch television.

         Internet can offer great opportunities. Teenagers and Children in Romania mainly use it to socialize or to play games. It is a good thing to meet people all over the world, because one can learn more about different cultures. But internet has a bad side as well. An emerging problem is related to the openness of the web and young people’s often inability to distinguish clearly between quality content and advertising. This openness also gives way for moral relativism, disregard for moral values, which is worrisome, in terms of what the society will look like in the future, when these children grow and are faced with choices with impact on society as a whole.  Another big problem is addiction. More and more young people in Romania are addicted to computer games or socializing websites. They can no longer live without them and they spend most of the day sitting by the computer. This serious problem can lead to physical changes in the human body, especially the brain.

         Most young people in Romania tune in to the radio primarily for music and entertainment, these being the main programs offered by the majority of radio stations. Cultural programs on the radio are often  regarded as „oldish” and uninteresting.

         The recent developments in technology have served to further decrease the numbers of young readers of printed media. In part, this is a result of the improved quantity and quality of information available from the internet, television and radio. There are many western-like, imported types of magazines for youth, focusing on gossip about celebrities.

The lack of quality media for children and young people and the growing availability of low-quality entertainment featuring violence, sexual content, undesirable role models and lack of diversity is alarming. Young audiences aren’t really given a fair choice.

         To sum up, mass-media has both good and bad aspects. If one is able to keep a balance between the real life and the virtual one and if one can distinguish between good and poor quality information everything should be fine. Still, it looks like there are many problems regarding mass-media.