Heidt !

Elizabeth Heidt
Professor Malcolm Campbell
English 1103
02/24/15
The Downfall of Relationships: How the Media and Porn are Affecting Adolescents
Have you been affected by the media? Think about a time when you watched a
movie or received a text message. If you have ever been inspired, angered, or became happy
after seeing a movie or reading a text, you have been emotionally affected by the media.
There are many different ways that the media can affect people. Although the emotional
affects of movies and texts go away, some media, like porn, have a lasting effect on people.
We have made great advances with the media, but is every advancement for the best? I believe media, such as movies, technology, such as cellphone apps, have influenced society the
greatest over the years. Many things have changed, but there are some who would disagree
about whether or not these changes are good. What caused the changes? The important
question I will be focusing on the most is has media and technology affected relationships?
Clearly, it has affected style, attitudes, education, and many other things, but what about
the way humans view each other romantically? I believe one of the biggest effects of the
media, is its effect on male and female relationships. I will be examining the differences of
relationships over time trying to see if the media is to blame for negative changes in relationships over time.
According to The Office of Adolescent Health, Between 2006 and 2008, 14 percent of
female adolescents and 25 percent of male adolescents had sex for the first time with someone

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they had just met or with whom they were just friends. Currently, at UNC Charlotte, eight out
of ten students asked, admitted to having hooked up with someone the night or day they met
them. This number is not surprising, but would be to someone who grew up before the past few
decades. I`m trying to discover how much the media is to blame for this. Why are people more
used to hookups rather than relationships? When I listen to love stories in the past they are incredibly different from the stories of today. People met in person, not with dating apps like Tinder, they asked each other on dates in person, not over text, or they had dinner with their families. Now days, many people are dating before they have met each others families. I interviewed
many people around the UNC Charlottes campus. Surprisingly, I learned many people have had
multiple intimate relationships before actually being in one. This is coming from real students,
not possibly fake polls online. I am aware that things have not always been this way. Of course,
there has always been a few people like this, but now it seems the majority of people are preferring hookups and fun, rather than a committed relationship.
A lot of females say they have noticed changes in effort when it comes to dating. How
has the media played a role in that? Well social media makes dates less personal, asking people
on dates over the phone instead of talking about things in person. I asked people around the UNC
Charlotte campus if they prefer to be asked out in person, mostly all replied yes, but are accepting of being asked out online. A student said, I would love to be asked out in person, but I do
not expect it to happen that way. An online source called, Connect Safely, said The most
common way relationships begin and end is texting: 77% of the teen respondents chose texting
as one of the top two ways relationships begin; 82% chose texting as one of the top two ways
relationships end. It is easier for people to talk online because they can say what they want and

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don't have to put themselves in uncomfortable situations. Also texting creates laziness in relationships. Instead of saying I love you it can be spelled like luv, lav, or even sent with an emoji.
It mate seem cute this way, but it is less meaningful. The changing of the word love is lazy and
less personal. Also, things are easily misinterpreted over text and can lead to silly fights, uncomfortable situations, or misunderstanding of feelings.
Some media choices that effect relationships are tinder and snapchat, but the biggest is
movies. Romantic movies give false representation of relationships. In the movie Don Jon, he
says women love to watch romantic movies because they give them ideas and fantasies of perfect
relationships. Although it is just a quote from a movie, he makes a great point. People see relationships on film and think thats how its supposed to be. Whether it is a life of hookups or people
in a deep personal relationship, either way, people get the wrong ideas of how things are supposed to be because of movies. Females see how a girl is treated in a movie, and expect that in
the real world, but are being misled. Now days, one has a hard time going to a movie and not
seeing some kind of sexual situation. Plus a lot of movies are all about sex like Don Jon and Fifty
Shades of Grey, both films make sex seem like the most important thing. Seeing these situations
over and over makes it seem like thats how things are supposed to be. Constantly being subjected
to sexual scenes in movies make people alter their perception of how they view relationships and
partners. The Great Schools Common Sense Blog reported, Teens report that their main source
of information about sex, dating and sexual health comes from what they see and hear in the media. This is not the way things should be. Why do movies include so many sex scenes? The answer is, because sex sells Sex sales because it is made to seem incredibly important. Great
Schools Common Sense Blog reported, Between 1998 and 2005, the number of sexual scenes

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on TV nearly doubled. This is an example of how over time sexual things become more expressed and normal.
A lot of people see each other as objects because of things like porn and technology that
allows them to send suggestive content. The Office of Adolescent Health said, New media play
an important role in adolescents dating and sexual relationships. More than one-third of adolescents say they have sent or posted sexually suggestive messages by text, IM, or e-mail. Lately
people do not demand respect, instead, they throw themselves around. Things like porn, movies,
and music make it easier to think thats how it supposed to be. Seeing porn at a young age, a developing age, effects the viewer and how they view other people and relationships. According to
Great Schools commonsense media blog, The biggest users of online pornography are 12-to 17year-old boys. Psychology Today says, In today's digital world, most adolescents turn to porn
for answers-and pleasure--and when porn becomes an adolescent boy's primary mode of sexual
education, it can be harmful to his brain's sexual development. It also states, Pornography
shows us a world where relationships mean nothing and immediate sexual gratification means
everything. Therefore, the adolescent viewer's brain is being wired to expect that sex and relationships are separate from one another, and that men and women's bodies should be sexually
exaggerated as they are in porn. Porn is a problem for relationships, when a woman finds out
her husband or boyfriend watches porn it causes the female to feel like she is not enough for him
and this causes insecurities. Movies affect us and porn destroys us.
I appreciate this topic because it is one people can agree with or disagree with. The majority agree that the media has changed relationships for the worse, but many would say they like
the changes. Some say media makes it easy to flirt and help people talk who are shy. I agree that

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media has both positive and negative effects. I believe the media is mostly a negative influence,
but has some perks. According to CNN`s webpage, The Upside Of Selfies: Social Media Isn't All
Bad for Kids, one in five teens say social media makes them feel confident, media helps keep
friendships lively. Media doesn't seem to positively effect relationships, but can have positive
effects. One positive thing about movies, is that people can get good romantic ideas from movies
for dates.
When I was younger I was always told you date to see who you will marry. In todays society it appears people date because they like each other, but they do not have intensions of a future together. Its a lot of in the moment shallow feelings, mostly based off of looks. A lot of
people like to fool around, but then as they get older they try and find someone not just based off
of looks. In a video on youtube called, Does social media effect relationships, one man said, I
am not going to marry her so what is the point in putting 100%. Dating is becoming shallow
and is for different reasons then love. I believe these attitudes tie back to how our brains have
been rewired by social media and technology since we were born. This video points out how
people are meeting online and look differently in person. This shows how media is changing our
self image and making us more focused on looks.

Relationships are being greatly influenced by todays media and technology ad-

vances. Movies are affecting our expectations for relationships, porn is effecting how our
brains develop and view each other, and social media apps are effecting how we communicate with our potential partners. Personally I believe people are being selfish, they can not
handle only having one partner when there are so many to choose from, I believe porn has
a huge role in that. A lot of people are not mature enough to handle relationships because

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they are being falsely educated by the media. NCBI is a website for The US National Library of Medicine and National Institutions of Health. They have preformed experiments,
conducted polls, and researched the media. Through their research they came up with an
answer for why people are changing. They said, Adolescents in the United States are engaging in sexual activity at early ages and with multiple partners. The mass media have
been shown to affect a broad range of adolescent health-related attitudes and behaviors including violence, eating disorders, and tobacco and alcohol use. One largely unexplored
factor that may contribute to adolescents' sexual activity is their exposure to mass media.
Relationships are being changed due to the influence of the media whether relationships
are romantically altered, problems with trust, perspective of what we deserve in a relationships is changed, or our actions with partners outside relationships all of the changes over
time to these categories is due to the media. Because the media is brainwashing people at a
young age to have different perspectives about love, sex, and relationships, than how they
used to be in the past. Most changes are good, but not all changes are for the best.