Lately, some have
wondered if I'm wearing two different hats. As president
and founder of the National Institute on Media and the Family,
I receive daily requests to explain the impact of media
to reporters, teachers, and parents. Reality television,
profane lyrics, violent video games, reports of torture
and war in the news - people want to know how these things
will affect kids. I know how many concerns parents and educators
have, and I'm proud to help out by wearing my media expert
hat.
My other hat comes from writing a new book, Why Do They
Act That Way: A Survival Guide to the Adolescent Brain for
You and Your Teen. Wearing my teen parenting expert
hat, I get a different range of questions and requests.
Appropriate curfews, teen-parent communication breakdowns,
how poor school performance can be turned around - many
parents of teens are aching for advice on these and other
matters. My research on the adolescent brain provides an
important new perspective.
Providing these two types of expertise is not as hard as
it may look. The secret is, I'm not wearing two different
hats at all. Why? Well, you can't explain the impact of
media on kids if you don't understand what kids are going
through as they grow up. And you can't understand the process
of growing up unless you have a sense of brain development.
It turns out, from a neurological perspective, adolescents
still have a lot of growing up to do. This revelation is
the missing link in explaining how media have such great
influence on teenagers.
Let me give you a few examples. Research has shown that
when portrayals of tobacco use appear in popular movies,
teen tobacco use in the real world shoots up. Other studies
have shown that the size of a beer company's advertising
budget exactly corresponds with its share of the underage
drinking market. Research conducted by the National Institute
on Media and the Family has demonstrated that teenagers
who play violent video games are more likely to act violently
and aggressively. Seventy-five percent of teens report media
images affect their own and their peers' sexual attitudes
and behaviors.
So it's not hard to see that media have an impact. The question
is why. One of the main stories behind the new adolescent
brain research is the fact that the impulse control center
is not fully developed in the teen brain. This means that
any little idea or urge that races through an adolescent
mind - gunning the engine of the car, or say, mouthing off
to a teacher - is difficult to stop. And if the ideas and
urges are shaped by media images? You guessed it: it's hard
to control those too.
I'm not suggesting that teens will copycat everything they
see on TV. I am saying they are much more vulnerable to
media influence than they or their parents thought until
now. MediaWise
David Walsh, Ph.D. is the founder of the
MediaWise Movement, a program of the National Institute
on Media and the Family (www.mediafamily.org).
His latest book, Why Do They Act That Way? A Survival
Guide to the Adolescent Brain for You and Your Teen
is available at all major booksellers.
