The mass media plays an instrumental role in society by relaying information and data that helps people to understand what is going around. The mass media acts as a true reflection of society by displaying what is happening in communities and projecting how society might turn out in the future. Mass media entertains and educates people on certain subject matters in the economy. As much as mass media has a number of benefits, there are also numerous negative impacts of mass media. Mass media has recently made it possible for people to express their thoughts, feelings, and innovation. However, mass media has multiple effects on young people because it leads youths to crime, poverty, nudity, and violence.
Drug Abuse
Over the past years, the mass media has continued to penetrate at an alarming rate, especially with the advent of the internet. Young people have been one of the age groups that quickly taken up the use of social media (Anderson et al., 2017). However, the high use of internet services has contributed to a tremendous increase in the number of young people engaging in drug and substance abuse. The mass media has a single tool that has driven thousands of youths to alcohol and smoking of both legal and illegal substances such as Marijuana and cigarettes. It is imperative to note that boys have been the biggest recipient of negative advertisements of mass media with regard to drugs.
Delegate your assignment to our experts and they will do the rest.
Most drug companies highly depend on the mass media to advertise their products to the general public. The leasing breweries companies that manufacture beer, whiskey, wine, and other assorted alcoholic drinks spend over $100 million in a year to advertise their products (Genner & Süss, 2017). The adverts contain persuasive messages that are mostly unbiased by mostly talking about the benefits of using alcoholics. The timing of the adverts is usually planned to reach a wider audience. In retrospect, most of the alcohol adverts run during prime time when most people, especially members, are glued to the mainstream media channels such as televisions and radio. Most of the brewing companies have huge financial muscles that enable them to run numerous advertisements. Besides, the economies of scale allow the brewing companies to advertise alcoholic substances on front pages of newspapers hence reaching more youths.
Moreover, cigarette and beer manufacturing companies use propaganda to lure youths into taking alcohol. Most of the adverts depict men that drink beer and smoke cigarettes as being masculine and focused (Anderson et al., 2017) . Most of the models that are used for advertising the drugs are well dressed and seem to have a solid future, which is not the case with most youths that are addicted to beer and tobacco. It is important to note that the long-term use of alcohol destroys the livelihoods of young people by stripping them dignity and the ability to work effectively (Ferguson, Nielsen, & Markey, 2017). Most of the young people that end up as alcoholics tend to lose their jobs due to unproductivity in their various companies.
The other form of mass media that has exacerbated the use of tobacco and beer is the now popular social media. Notably, there are over one billion social media users spread across the entire world. Over 70% of the social media users around the world are composed of young people who have access to computing devices and have a substantial amount of time to browse through various platforms (Stanley et al., 2018) . The beer and tobacco manufacturing companies have leveraged the use of social media to reach a wider audience. It is integral to underscore that social media does not put stringent measures of age limit; hence, children as young as ten years are bound to come across an advertisement for drugs.
Furthermore, most beer companies have taken advantage of the social media waves to open accounts and place ads that are meant to inform the audience of a new product. The advert is usually targeted to reach the specific target audience, in this case, the young people who fresh from college and are earning (Stanley et al., 2018) . One of the platforms that have proven to be beneficial for tobacco and beer products is Facebook and Instagram that allow advertisers to custom their budget to meet a certain target audience. Most of the tobacco and beer adverts do not communicate the effects of drugs, such as damage to the liver, lungs, kidney, or any other body organ (Hale et al., 2018). Instead, most advertisers tend to encourage people to take more alcohol and tobacco to become men of high reputation in the society, a concept that is used to swindle the public into generating more revenues for the companies.
Crime and Violence
Over the years, mass media has been one of the biggest contributors to crime and violence in society. Music videos contribute a bigger percentage to the various crimes and violence orchestrated by people in communities. Music videos are accessed from the mainstream media, that is, television and from the internet (Anderson et al., 2017) . Notably, some of the young people are attracted to videos that appreciate crime and encourage violence in society. The music videos are usually shot by young people who sing lyric's that the bigger audience of young people can relate to understand (Hale et al., 2018). The musicians use slangs that have coded meaning about certain crimes such as murder, killings, and robbery. It is, therefore, impossible for a person outside the target audience of a musician to grasp the kind of content that is being shared.
In modern times, people access music videos from the internet, mostly from companies that over video streaming services such as YouTube, Spotify, and iTunes (Anderson et al., 2017). Most of the platforms do not have tight policies and laws for countering or pulling down music videos that are considered to promote violence and crime in society or goes against the community guidelines of a video streaming company (Collins et al., 2017) . Before a video is pulled down, it may take a substantial amount of time that causes the damage of proportional magnitude to the viewers. It is also important to note that there is always a thin line between freedom of speech and allowing content that is considered illegal on various websites (Grubbs et al., 2017) . One music videos that may be seen inappropriate by a particular media house may not be an issue to another media house; hence one faction of mass media may be promoting good values while the other side of mass media technology can promote crime and violence on the pretext of upholding the freedom of speech.
Nonetheless, terrorism is another form of crime that is propagated by mass media. In the last two decades, there has been a rise in the number of terrorist attacks launched worldwide (Collins et al., 2017) . The terrorist has wreaked havoc by killing people, destroying buildings, and sabotaging the economies of countries by forming parallel governments. The mass media has proven to be a viable tool that terrorists use to recruit other members and radicalize them into illegal groups across the globe (Grubbs et al., 2017) . Social media has been the biggest proponent of terrorism in certain groups such as Al Qaida have been able to use Facebook and Twitter to reach a wider audience of people. The organizing of terror activities such as bombing is known to have arrived through mass media, both print-electronic something that has contributed to the negative impacts of mass media.
Pornographic Materials and Pre-Marital Sex
The mass media has contributed a huge chunk to the relaying of pornographic materials and pre-marital sex in both young and old people. Notably, the internet can be termed as the key driver of the pornographic market (Ferguson, Nielsen & Markey, 2017). Any person that has access to the internet has the potential of viewing any pornographic materials in the form of images and videos irrespective of their geographical location. The access to pornographic materials has no age limit provided an individual has a phone and internet services, which makes young children prone to pornographic sites (Hale et al., 2018) . Pedophiles have leveraged the internet using pornographic materials to lure children as young as ten years to sex orgies that contrive laws and moral values of societies.
Moreover, the internet has been a breeding ground for pre-marital sex. The internet has given a platform to people who are not married to meet and organize sex escapades. Most of the sites that have promoted sex before marriage is dating sites where some individuals that do not have the intention to get married set camp to hurt vulnerable people that are looking for marriage and love (Genner & Süss, 2017). On the other hand, the intern services have interfered with the normal school programming by providing students with sites such as social media where they spend time instead of engaging in school activities (Hale et al., 2018). Besides, children have used the internet to download pornographic materials, something that has been a precursor to masturbation, rape, and other forms of sexual violence.
Conclusion
Mass media is a powerful tool that is used to bring changes in society, whether good or bad. There are numerous beets of mass media in a society that help people in receiving information and data. However, there are salient negative impacts that have exacerbated moral decadence in the society by going against the known values or the set laws on the use of mass media. In most population setups, the young people have been widely affected by the negative effects of mass media since they have access to both print and electronic media and have time to go through various forms of media. Some of the notable effects of mass media include drug abuse, crime, and violence. Besides, media, specifically the internet, has provided a platform where young people can watch and download pornographic materials as well as facilitate pre-marital sex between young people.
References
Anderson, C. A., Bushman, B. J., Bartholow, B. D., Cantor, J., Christakis, D., Coyne, S. M., ... & Huesmann, R. (2017). Screen violence and youth behavior. Pediatrics , 140 (Supplement 2), S142-S147. https://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/140/supplement_2/s142.abstract
Chang, F. C., Chiu, C. H., Miao, N. F., Chen, P. H., Lee, C. M., & Chiang, J. T. (2016). Predictors of unwanted exposure to online pornography and online sexual solicitation of youth. Journal of health psychology , 21 (6), 1107-1118. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1359105314546775
Collins, R. L., Strasburger, V. C., Brown, J. D., Donnerstein, E., Lenhart, A., & Ward, L. M. (2017). Sexual media and childhood well-being and health. Pediatrics , 140 (Supplement 2), S162-S166. https://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/140/supplement_2/S162.abstract
Ferguson, C. J., Nielsen, R. K., & Markey, P. M. (2017). Does sexy media promote teen sex? A meta-analytic and methodological review. Psychiatric quarterly , 88 (2), 349-358. https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007/s11126-016-9442-2.pdf
Genner, S., & Süss, D. (2017). Socialization as media effect. The international encyclopedia of media effects , 1-15. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/9781118783764.wbieme0138
Grubbs, J. B., Exline, J. J., Pargament, K. I., Volk, F., & Lindberg, M. J. (2017). Internet pornography use, perceived addiction, and religious/spiritual struggles. Archives of Sexual Behavior , 46 (6), 1733-1745. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10508-016-0772-9
Hale, L., Kirschen, G. W., LeBourgeois, M. K., Gradisar, M., Garrison, M. M., Montgomery-Downs, H., ... & Buxton, O. M. (2018). Youth screen media habits and sleep: sleep-friendly screen behavior recommendations for clinicians, educators, and parents. Child and Adolescent Psychiatric Clinics , 27 (2), 229-245. https://www.childpsych.theclinics.com/article/S1056-4993(17)30138-4/abstract
Stanley, N., Barter, C., Wood, M., Aghtaie, N., Larkins, C., Lanau, A., & Överlien, C. (2018). Pornography, sexual coercion and abuse and sexting in young people's intimate relationships: A European study. Journal of interpersonal violence , 33 (19), 2919-2944. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0886260516633204
