As a single mother of two children,
5 and 10 years old, I find it extremely hard to protect my children from seeing
inappropriate subjects due to the media, both social media and regular media.
Nowadays the media is everywhere and has taken over our lives. Though it is
easy to blame the media for my children gaining knowledge of certain
information, it is my fault as well. In the car I have the radio on, at home I
may watch the news (which I try not to do around the kids) and I am guilty of
checking Facebook periodically throughout the day. Since my children are
constantly over my shoulder, the catch glimpses of news clips and gossip, which
the media LOVES to spread.
I must be honest, there was a point
where I was on Facebook all of the time, and I actually began to feel my kids
becoming a bit disconnected from me. When I felt this disconnection, at first,
I thought it was because I had went back to school and wasn’t able to read them
their bedtime stories every night as I once did. But then one day my daughter
looked at me and said “ hm, you’re on Face book AGAIN I see”. My response was,
“well if you’re playing or reading I can have some ‘me’ time”. But then I began
to think. Those are not the only times that I was on social media. I began to
be more aware of my time spent on both my telephone and social media, and
instantly felt my kids not being distant with me anymore. I couldn’t believe
that I had become THAT mother!
Not only was I not paying as much
attention to my kids, I found myself feeling more depressed than usual. Granted
in was going through a divorce, so I was already pretty down. But onto of that,
every time I was on Facebook, I would see everyone with their families, and I
felt like now mine was a broken family. I became irritable and felt very low
about myself. Until I realized just because the kids dad was no longer there,
doesn’t mean there was something wrong with my family, it was just 1 person
less. I had to learn how to appreciate all of the little thongs, and realize
that media and social media paints pictures for people, but you make your in
control of painting your own picture according to your own life. I learned to
stop putting my self in the mold that the media was telling me to put myself
in, and appreciate what I had with my beautiful babies. (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dr-perpetua-neo/does-facebook-make-you-de_b_8474654.html)
Social media, or media for that
matter, may not only distance one from their families, but from all the images
that one sees constantly being thrown at them, one may become distant with
themselves. You tend to loose a sense of your self and even self worth at
times. I know for me, when I see all of these images of what beauty is supposed
to look like, I feel fat and ugly. I’ve struggled with eating disorders and have
purchased expensive makeup and diet pills, because I never felt like I looked
“good enough”.
The media is constantly drilling,
dreams, ideas, desires etc. into our heads, and we eat it all up! For example,
they have made this election into an absolute scepticle of a circus. As an
American I am absolulty embaressed for all parties involved. Donald trump is an
unqualified, unkind, horrific person who is glorified by the media. They eat
every littlee stupid word up that comes out of that mans mouth. The other night
I was watching the Jimmy Fallon showand Trump was being interviwed by him.
Jimmy Fallon always makes fun of that ignorant man and makes it clear how full
of crap tump is. But that night, he was joking with Trump and making him look
like a really cool guy. I was horrified! Needless to say, Ive officially boycotted
the Jimmy Fallon show and everything he is associated with. But honestly, what
good is that going to do when so many people In the media don’t realy care
about the election, they just care about how many viewers and followers they
can get.
The Media plays a big part in how
we see the world and intern how we see ourselves. Though it is, that’s the
truth. And until people stop allowing the media to take total control of their
lives and start to have a mind and an opinion of their own again, its only
going to get worse. This society needs to open their eyes and realize what is
going o, and put a sop to it!
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