Heidt !

Elizabeth Heidt
Professor Malcolm Campbell
English 1103
02/24/15
The Downfall of Relationships: How the Media and Porn are Affecting Adolescents
Social media is the new way of communication. It has a hold on almost everyone. It appears to be a great advancement, but is it? The majority of people only focus on its affect on self
image, which is really important, but its not the only thing that social media has a negative affect
on. An important question people should ask themselves is, have I been affected by the media? It
is important to be aware of what medias are doing to our brains and most importantly how it is
changing the way people interact with one another romantically.
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.
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

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been emotionally affected by the media. There are many different ways that the media can affect
people. Although the emotional effects of movies and texts go away, some media, like porn, have
a lasting effect on people.
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
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. Today, 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

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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
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 may 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 affect relationships are Tinder and Snapchat, but the biggest is
movies. Romantic movies give false representation of relationships. In the movie Don Jon, the
main character Jon, a young womanizer 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, Jon 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. A lot of movies are all
about sex. For Example Don Jon, Fifty Shades of Grey, and American Pie. These films all focus
on sex and fun, the idea of a relationship is not important to the characters in them. Seeing these

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situations over and over makes it seem like that`s 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 on TV nearly doubled. This is an example of how over time sexual things become
more expressed and normal. It should not be a normal occurrence to see nudity on the television.
Modesty does not seem to be a thing anymore.
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, affects the viewer and how they view other people and relationships. According to
Great Schools common sense 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

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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
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 affect relationships, but can have positive
effects. One positive thing about movies, is that people can get good romantic ideas from movies
for dates.
During the teenage years is when the brain is being effected the most. The brain isn't just
being rewired and changing our views on relationships, the brain is also being changed in many
other ways. For example, teens, adults, and children are all being effected from the media because our brains are being trained to multitask, which is making us less focus on one subject.
When we are young and impressionable we easily pick up on negative things. We are humans we
can not help but we drawn to bad things, but we can stop somethings from changing us. For example, porn is not something we have to have to survive. It is something that people choose to do
and or watch. It is only harming people, yet they have no idea.

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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 than 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 advances.
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 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

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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.
Almost every sit I looked at, porn is a leading factor in the downfall of relationships. According to Amanda Hess, And when it comes to pornography use among children and teens who
then go on to engage in risky sexual behaviors or even become sex offenders, causal relationships cannot be established. In fact, the total lack of insight into the much-feared cause-and-effect relationship between porn use and sexual abuse caused the studys authors to question
whether its even possible to conduct research into causality. Easy access to online pornography
encourages teenage boys to see girls as sex objects and to engage in risky sexual behavior, according to a major study. Porn is leading to the downfall of relationships.
Sadly, 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. 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. Social media is a great advancement in todays society. The problem is it is not being monitored. Porn is incredibly easy to find on any app. Adolescents are being given technology at such
a young age that they are being subjected to materials way to advanced for them. These changes
to the brain are not healthy for relationships. People are now falling in love with technology instead of people.

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Dakin, Pauline. "Social Media Affecting Teens' Concepts of Friendship, Intimacy." CBCnews.
CBC/Radio Canada, 25 Feb. 2014. Web. 26 Feb. 2015.

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"Does Social Media Affect Relationships?" YouTube. YouTube, n.d. Web. 09 Mar. 2015.
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Rambaree, Komalsingh. "The Ecology of Early Adolescents' Internet Mediated Sexual Interactions." (2015). Print.
06 Mar. 2015
What Porn Does to Intimacy." Psychology Today. N.p., n.d. Web. 06 Mar. 2015.