Controlled by the Media
Even if people don’t like to admit it, the media has a major impact on every decision they make. It’s hard to think that just about every choice a person makes is controlled by an outside source. The media influences some of the decisions people make everyday such as the products people buy, how people want to look and even, how people think their everyday lives should run. The media shows people images of people who are beautiful and happy and every single one of them have the perfect life because they bought some amazing product. In reality people always have problems. No one has a perfect life. The image that is projected in the media of the average family is not really in the average person’s grasp.
Hardly a day goes by that a person doesn’t buy something, and even this decision that people make almost every day is influenced by the media. For example, McDonald’s commercials for happy meals show perfect, happy little kids running around and playing and their beautiful happy mom hands them a happy meal. In reality if that family ate at McDonald’s a lot that little kid would be over weight and his or her overweight mom would ride up on her motorized scooter and hand them a happy meal and no one is really happy in fact they are probably in a lot of pain from so many health problems. But the media shows people that if they just buy that happy meal everything would be perfect, they wont have to worry about cooking dinner, or picky eaters, and their family will get a quick, inexpensive meal and everyone will be happy. So of course the mom who just got off work late and picked up her three screaming kids is going to be very tempted to just pull up to the McDonald’s located conveniently on the side of the road in almost every town. In reality her kids just ate more fat than they should have in a week and it only kept them quiet for about five minutes and the picture the media shows people never happened.
Every day people get up, get dressed, and do their hair and their make up, until they look just the way they want to look. Even this everyday routine is influenced by the media. For instance most people aren’t going to go out wearing elevator shoes, bell bottoms, a tie-dye shirt, round, purple sunglasses, an afro, a head band, and various accessories with peace signs on them anymore. Why not?, Because the media tells us that was only “in” in the seventies and therefore not acceptable any more. But not only is what people wear and their hairstyle influenced by the media even the size and shape people want to be is influenced. For example, most people in the media are skinny people with an average height and perfect features. Average people don’t look like that and they most likely never will. The media shows a false image of what normal people should look like and it just sets people up to feel bad about themselves when they can’t achieve it.
The media even affects how people think their everyday lives should go. When people watch TV shows the average family is perfect the mom and the dad are perfect and they have two or three perfect kids and they all love each other, their house is always clean, they don’t have problems making ends meet and, everything always works out for them. The mom makes dinner every night while the kids do their homework and when the dad gets home from work they all have a nice family dinner and everyone tells how their day went. I don’t think any one has this kind of life but almost every body wants it because the media has told people that this is what they should have and that will make them happy.
In conclusion, every decision every person makes is influenced by the media from the products people buy and how people look to how people run their everyday lives. Some may try to argue and say that people can ignore the media and that people make their own decisions, but in my opinion I think it’s obvious that everything people do is affected by the media even when people don’t even realize it.
