Everything Is Public - Joan

In the age of technology and all that is digital, people have much easier access to information. Easier accessibility results in more things becoming public.
Thinking about that makes me wonder just how much can truly be safe with the heightened accessibility we all have now. You don’t have to be a celebrity or political figure to become the media’s scapegoat. One of the newest trends is to video helpless high school victims get beaten up by their peers, and BAM! just like that you can make breaking news on your local TV station.
Media creates pressure. Everywhere I look I am bombarded with what I should look like, what I should like, where I should live, and what should I like. As a girl, I get to see hundreds of billboards portraying beautiful, flawless, size-00 women, which makes me think, “May I should only weight fifteen pounds too.” That’s not the only form of pressure. Just think about the new “branding” commercials. Aren’t we taught in schools that were not supposed to brand those and others around us? What’s to happen when you look at a regular pair of Levi jeans, but then only imagine them on rough and rugged, good-looking cowboys instead of yourself? What’s the point in the consumer buying them if they don’t believe they look as good in Levi jeans as those modeling them? The media is starting to make people set the bar a little too high for the population to reasonably jump over.
Now it’s not like everything about the media reeks of shallow façades; the media has helped get the ball rolling on a lot matters. During the Vietnamese War the media through radios and certain stations were able to bring the true account of what was happening to the soldiers we were sending over. The media also makes us aware of what is happening to other countries, like Darfur, giving us the opportunity to help those else where that are suffering and feel grateful for what safety we do have, despite the fact we have to trade out privacy for it. For all that we are now capable of in the Digital Age, it’s not hard to see that the media has become of super power, greater than any country can ever rise to become. No matter how much negativity and setbacks come from the media, it shall always prevail. I know that despite the pressure I so often feel from our society’s media, there will always be something good intermixed that balances it out. So do I feel that the media leaves an evil impact on me? No that’s not the case, I just believe that our lives have become too much of an open book as a price to pay for our easy access now. It’s all in due time to see what happens to this super power, and whether it’s outcome is worth a little peek into everyone’s lives.