The Mass Media

No doubt we are all affected by the media these days. Is it all as negative as it is usually claimed? Give your views.

We cannot deny that the media has become part of almost every person who lives in society, whether its consequences are good or bad, it lives with us.

Many people claim and complain about the content they see on TV, in newspapers, on the web, that is to say, in the media. Most of them are violent or obscene, they claim and they also associate it with different phenomena occurring in our societies. In other words, they point out that people are being wrongly influenced by the media. Some studies show that because of early exposure (in children, for example) to the mass media, people tend to have some problems like drug abuse, alcohol abuse and early pregnancy. In addition, academics complain about attention problems in students, which could be caused by the excessive use of the media. For example, children who spend three or four hours watching TV, receiving different images per minute, have hard problems trying to concentrate on reading or solving math problem.
Some other arguments in favour to this position say that the media is also influencing our personal relationships. We may be more in contact with people from the outer world than those people who live next doors or even under the same roof as us. For example, children who spend hours chatting online are just alone in front of the screen and no personal (face to face) communication takes place.

On the other hand, some other people, in contrast with the above exposed, say that the media has influenced people in a good way (in this case, the term people could also be a synonym of society). Media, they say, has left an open door to the outer world. We get to know almost immediately what happens in any “corner of the world”. The use of cell phones has also made it easier to communicate among people. By sending a text message you can totally convey an idea, apology for getting late or tell your mum that you are OK.

Personally, I agree with some other people who claim that it is not the media which influences us in a good or bad way, it is the use and the place we let it get in our lives that make so. We have the power of deciding what content we want to see, to read, and to be exposed to. In other words, the media, thanks to its development, has many things to offer us, so, we are the ones who choose what we want.

Esteban Arrieri