The affects of stereotypes spread by social media are very powerful and can have a damaging impact upon society and the youth in particular. The influence of social media can cause long reaching consequences for people who are caught in that vicious web.
Mass media is a necessary and unavoidable part of the world as we know it today, even more so in developed nations. Printed materials namely books, magazines, newspapers along with radio, television and internet are all essential for our daily lives. Work, education and entertainment are all dependent upon media. Whether it is online banking, information research or students wanting to buy assignment, the media is what we all reach out to.
The most rapidly developing medium currently is the internet however the television too still holds the power to influence and alter mindsets. The messages being conveyed, highlighted and given significance by any sort of media, can have a huge impact upon the opinions, desires, attitudes and beliefs of the masses.
Our brain helps us organise all the knowledge we acquire from the world around us, by the means of a sorting which is aimed at the simplification of information. The brain can create cognitive schemes, which are particular representations of the most fundamental and typical elements of reality. This helps an individual to define the basics of the human civilisation and the world we live in.
These schemes affect the social cognition of a person in all kinds of ways, such as anticipation of an expected event, comprehending situations and controlling feelings and emotions. Often based upon resistance to changes and tradition, your brain can produce various generalisations and simplifications. Stereotypes are formed in our mindset and in turn in our society in result of this mental process.
Stereotypes are bound to create subjective, incomplete and in some circumstances false and unrealistic ideas about reality. What the young generation sees, understands and hears through social media channels helps them in figuring out who and what is considered important in our culture.
The media plays a prominent role in endorsing these stereotypes. Even though people are much more aware of this fact then they were a few years back and the topic remains under discussion on platforms throughout the world, mass media is still a source of feeding traditional gender stereotypes to people. People and more importantly children and teenagers get sucked in this treacherous vortex of replicating the behaviour displayed online. Having unique and unbiased point of views has become a nearly rare mindset and people are much more intent on following media trends.
Men and women both assume that they have certain norms that they need to meet if they want to be accepted and not shunned by civilisation. Men are forced to develop an aggressive personality and encouraged to not display their feelings and emotions. Women on the other hand are persuaded to copy an idealistic body image and told that it can gain them a better position in life rather than their skills or strength of character.
Indirect and explicit messages on any form of social media are capable of reinforcing stereotypes and can easily mould a young mind that is still in the stages of development. Young people can build wrong ideas about their role in society and their identity. Their perspective about the world is not created by personal experience but by the views that are fed to them by social media sources that surround them.
Apart from just creating gender stereotypes, the internet and television can influence the attitudes of social groups in an unrealistic and adverse way. It is proven by research that values, attitudes and self-esteem are fully developed in a person’s mid teen years or sometimes at en even early age. The violence showcased in video games that are a part of most people’s childhoods, messages displayed in advertisements or negative lyrics and actions of pop sensations that the youth follow and admire have a serious affect on who they become as an adult.
There are also other issues that the young generation faces today like eating disorders and bullying to name a few. Anorexia is often developed in teens as they are forced to think only a certain physic is acceptable and body shaming leads to worse scenarios like self harm and suicide attempts. The media portrays these stereotypes through fashion models showing off a seemingly perfect figure and flawless skin which develops a feeling of self loathing in young girls who think their lives are meaningless if they don’t look like that.
It is undoubtedly a sad yet genuine issue that social media massively affects all of our lives to some extent. We are unable to extract it from our routines as it has become a necessary tool for almost all kinds of work that we do. However, we can lessen the impact if social media is used in a more healthy way instead of the abuse it goes through in the hands of our young generation right now.
It is a source of limitless knowledge, both positive and negative. If we work together we can infuse a better understanding of sorting the right from the wrong in our children’s minds. They will start to assess everything they come across instead of diving straight into it and following any trend they find attractive.
Social media cannot be dismissed as a source that can only spread chaos and negativity. It certainly has its benefits and we need to make ourselves and our young generation more aware of the good and bad sides of it. The influential power it holds upon the masses can be used to convey messages that help in creating a new social order where people are accepted, loved and identified for who they are. Whether gender, racial or any type of social stereotype all can be abolished by the proper usage of the same social media that has helped in developing them and all we need is the hope and willingness to do it.