Teens in the Media

Firstly, the media does NOT portray teens as how they really are. Books, movies, and tv shows always make us seem like irresponsible, lazy, and disrespectful people who are not concerned with anyone but themselves when in reality most of us are just trying to balance school, a social life, and sleeping all at once, which is seemingly impossible in this day and age (at least to most of us), and then on top of that there’s an over-emphasis on teenage romance, which is just unrealistic in most cases. Most kids my age barely have enough time to get their homework done, let alone sleep or see their friends, so adding in the additional pressure of a significant other isn’t rational for most people.

Most teens don’t have boyfriends or girlfriends, especially long lasting ones. Granted, there’s always one or two people in every grade who’ve been dating since the age of like ten, but for the most part, a vast majority of people don’t date in high school the way people in movies date in high school. This glorification of teenage romance causes kids my age to focus more of their time on finding someone to date rather than studying or working on a hobby, and it makes a lot of teens to feel insecure and insignificant when nobody is head over heels in love with them yet because the media makes it appear that the only way you’re going to feel important is if you’re deeply in love with someone who’s also deeply in love with you.

And as humans, we value personal connections with others above all else because, as a whole, our greatest fear is being alone, which is over-emphasized by the media, especially in movies about teenagers. I’m not saying don’t date in high school, I’m just saying that it shouldn’t be your main priority, even though many books, tv shows, and movies make it seem like it should be.