Hello fellow bloggers and childhood socialization enthusiasts! At the end my last post I mentioned a study I was going to refer to this time, but I think I am going to save that for next week instead! My sociology classes this week totally correlate with my blog so instead I decided I wanted to divert this post towards socialization influences.
My notes suggest that "Society makes us human". Personally, I feel like being considered a unique individual is trending as the "cool" thing to do nowadays (ironic, heh?) so no one would really be happy to hear that society is actually manipulating your personality through the subconscious. I was asked to respond to the question along the lines of "what agents of socialization are most effective to myself".My first answer was family, because I've been surrounded by them literally since the day I was born so of course their going to mold my character. And my immediate second answer was peer groups, but than I realized unlike my family they have not surrounded me my entire life, besides a few exceptions, as I've grown up most of my friends changed. Then I went to think what else has been apart of my entire life.. mass media! I was never a "couch potato" or a pop culture junkie but even though I am not trying to keep up with this stuff it is all over! Implanting of so many aspects of my life! Unless you live in alone in the rain forest there really is no escaping mass media. What society labels as right, wrong, beautiful, ugly, masculine, feminine, in style, out of style, is constantly shoved in our faces...for the entirety of our life's... even before we were born!
This brings me back to my topic, if we are subliminally being fed messages from the mass media of how we are supposed to act, than what does that say for children? (Of course media has positive effects on developing youth, like educational T.V. shows and....wait that might be it....point taken, the media is defiantly not dominated by goals to positively influence children.) At a highly impressionable stage of life kids are being fed standards of what is dictated as right and wrong before they are old enough to even consider their personal opinions, judgement's and morals. Actually never mind that, before they are even old enough to pronounce those words!
Just the other day my niece (who is now almost 10) asked me if in high school the cafeteria is really split up by cliques. Alyssa has not even finished elementary school yet, she is not sure what order "Freshman, Sophomore, Junior and Senior" go in, or what the heck a "common app" is for!? Why would she know any of that, she has years until she experiences it. BUT she does know that the tall skinny cheerleader is popular and dating the tan strong star QB (which might I mention is not factual to any highschool I know of). Alyssa did not just come up with this ideal for highschool she's been exposed to it...for almost a decade! So many children are brainwashed by these concepts. Strong is hot, skinny is beautiful, tan is sexy, money is popularity, long hair is for girls, short hair is for boys, tight is feminine, sports are manly.. this list is practically endless . In the 21st century lot of people are aware of how the ideals are false, but it seems there is trouble letting go of these concepts because they are still promoted to us. I know children do not read "cosmo" or watch MTV or even skim the fashion or sports section while they're drinking their morning sippy cup...but not everything is that direct.. when Mommy picked out a pink dress for her newborn daughter or Daddy brought his three year old son to the baseball game... that was the concepts that are directed through mass media (subconsciously) being regurgitated to children, before they are capable of making any personal choices, by the people that pick them up when they cry, feed them when their hungry, and cuddle them endlessly, the people they trust! So of course these standards are right...right?
What does this say for a child? their self-esteem? relationships? friendships? future?
(Alyssa sounds so sweet, by the way), but yeah, this is really interesting. The media totally has a billion things to do with his kids grow up- look even at that clip from Mean Girls, with the little sister flashing the TV while Girls Gone Wile is just casually playing on the TV. It's crazy the impact media has on kids. I also think it's a really long chain of events- for years, parents have conditioned their kids on how to act in their gender or social standing, and from there the media picked it up and continued the trend to new parents, and now their kids are getting it directly from the media, it kind of makes you wonder where the cycle's going to go next?
ReplyDeleteI think its kind of just an inevitable pattern at this point, so that when these kids become parents, they're going to be teaching the same concepts... But your post also makes me wonder, did society express these gender roles or was society they taught them through the media and than continued to assume that they're proper?
DeleteThis generation is exposed to an endless amount of mass media that is affecting them and it's honestly crazy! Alyssa knows that what she has seen on TV must be real because she doesn't know any better, yet. The stereotypical popular cheerleader or hot football player is what kids have learned to be "cool". Skinny is exemplified as beautiful because that is what we EXPECT to see and that is what every one KNOWS and WANTS to see modeling that teenie tiny bikini. I feel like there needs to be shows that teach the kids lessons that they will go through (but in a fun age appropriate way). The media should show both angles of a point and not just the one we continue to learn about with all of these stereotypes. And as for the weening of gender, why do girls pick out dresses with their mothers and why does a boy go to the baseball game with their dads? Why are these the norms and not something else? It's hard to even say there are standards because I feel like it has to depend on the individual himself/herself. This is so contradicting!
ReplyDeleteChildren should be able to express themselves but them being exposed to the EXPECTATIONS of this society can cause them to think less or more of themselves..