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From the moment we are born, we are inundated with countless stimuli affecting our perceptual outlook on life, society, our family, our friends, our SELVES.

This is inescapable.

As a young child, much of what we do is monitored by our care givers. They are with us more than they are not, making most of our choices in life for us, from what we are going to eat, when we are going to sleep, to how and what we are going to play with.

Freedom of choice as to that which we shall allow into our consciousness, what we shall focus our attentions within and upon grows as we do. As a young child leaves the home to enter into the educational system, much of the singularly focussed monitoring becomes mutli-focusses and is now dependant upon more than merely our primary caregiver.

What are you learning in school? What materials has your teacher chosen for you to learn? What information are you garnering from your friends and their lives?

What are you seeing when not within the watchful eye of your caregiver?

Media alike our teachers and friends, is another medium of information reception. Akin to all such mediums, from our very first, primary caretakers straight through to our teachers, friends, & eventually co-workers, unless you never step outside of your home, read, watch television or listen to the radio, it is inescapable, it is as much a part of our lives as our biological functioning.

None of we are untouched or unaffected by the stimuli attracting our attentions. Once the information is received it can not be "unreceived". Once your eyes have set on the latest horror monster, the newest fashion trend, the current top 10 music albums, they are forever within your memories "back up system", and they AFFECT YOU.

Perhaps the monster showed up in your dreams the night after first seeing it, or the music you heard is playing endlessly in your mind's ear, regardless of the stimuli, once you have absorbed it, it is now a part of you, a part of what makes you who you are.

HOW this or any stimuli affects any one is completely an individual experience.

For some, monsters are known to be no more than make believe and if dreamed about the following night, only as some claymation figure smashed into a beautifull house of your making. For another, seeing the latest fashion trends leads to deep depression at the thought of not being able to "pull it off", not having the right body or image to make it look the way it does in the magazines or on television.

This has much to do with our primary caregiver's influence, however, has as much to do with our geographical location as it does our social networks. We are affected by all.

It is not a question of whether the media affects, but how it affects, more over, how it affects each individual, for each individual is subject to their own personal unique experiences in life, each and all contributing to the assimilation of any new stimuli/information.

To give a blatant general reply as to how media affects teenagers is to assume that teenagers around the globe are all watching/reading/listening to the exact same media and coming from the exact same life experiences.

A better question might be, what are the pervading themes of our current media vehicles?

Learn more about this author, Rhonda Sheryl Lipstein.
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