Jeanette Pistek - Turabian style MEDIA ESSAY

Have you ever noticed in our days how television and advertising has such a huge impact on American culture and youth? The television has a negative impact on behavior, health, intelligence, and morality. There are so many risks of too much television. As for advertising, there are also many negative effects on young Americans. They have terrible attitudes and behave not like young adults should. Nothing is hidden or behind closed doors today. Everything is out there and open for everybody to see and know. Adults and children are exposed to the same television shows, and advertisements. We live in an “anything goes” society where nothing is particularly listed as being wrong. At such a young age, I used to be outside playing jump rope, riding bikes, playing catch or board games. But today, television is a huge part of young as well as older people’s lives. More so the younger age group. In one photograph, there is a young boy, eating popcorn and watching some television. Now there doesn’t seem to be much of an issue, hearing that, but looking at the picture he is overweight. The reasoning for this is because the child is glued watching television all day and not participating in any activities or exercise for that matter. This is proving that the television is causing a negative effect on the fact that America is obese. People don’t know how to limit themselves or their children to a limited amount of television per day. This is putting Americans health at risk increasing rates for heart attacks. Sitting in front of the television with snacks isn’t going to help weight issues if you already have. According to studies, it is trying to be proven that long amounts of time in front of a television can become a problem later in life of developing cancer. The way of just sitting in front of the television and being inactive isn’t good for anybody. Behavior from too much television also comes into play. When one watches too much television they seem to become very lazy and cranky and not wanting to do much. Many people who end up on the couch watching television all day want to spend their nights in the house and not go out and be productive with their lives. This leads into people’s brains becoming to “mush” because while watching television your brain process isn’t functioning properly as it would if you were reading a book or participating in an activity. Your mind shuts down and you’re just watching all fantasy things go on behind a screen for hours upon hours. This causes your intelligence to drop because you aren’t holding a conversation getting to know information and other than that, you aren’t getting any information at all. Television is just entertainment to pass the time. Especially the things on television today, show no morals whatsoever. Everything has violence in it. Whether it be the news, a reality show, a fantasy show or a comedy there is some sort of violence going out encouraging the behavior. The television encourages behavior that isn’t positive on young children. So to solve all of those issues, television should be limited to each person a day, and make sure physical activities are completed to ensure that you stay in good health and shape, and keep your mind going dealing with situations throughout your day instead of sitting on a couch watching nonsense. Also, limited television can also help eliminate some violence and try and encourage good behavior in life. Today’s day in age, advertising has a negative impact of America’s youth. For example, there are advertisements of cigarettes, and young “cool” boys doing it as well as pretty boys. Holly wood celebrities who are many children and minors role models are posing with cigarettes in their mouths as if it is an okay thing to do. This is bad advertisement and encouraging