Digital Media

Introduction: You may have heard of digital media, but you may have no idea what it is and how it can help you out when it comes to marketing. It's definitely important that you get up to speed so you can use this to benefit your business. Basically digital media refers to any type of electronic media out there. Today media can be accessed in many ways, including with hand held devices like mobile phones, laptops, desktops, mp3 players, and more. Digital media must be stored in an electronic way, so there is a lot of digital content on the internet today, including text content, pictures, audio content, as well as video content.Through the history of internet, digital media has been developing in various ways. Here's we'll take a look at how it has affected the Internet and ways that it may be integrated moving forwards (Rogers 2006). One type of digital media is text; this in fact represented the very first explosion of  this  type of content  out there on the Internet. When t he Internet first got big, there was an explosion of content on the web, especially with all the text editors and word processing options out there today (Rogers 2006).Larger companies started to put date on computers instead of storing it in cabinets, and the internet definitely allowed a great way to share, transfer, and store content as well. As the Internet grew, images began to appear. Instead of just text emails, soon people could send photos, and soon photo sites for sharing photos began to pop up. Then in the middle 1990s, audio began to become an important part of digital media with the mp3 files that could be easily used. Soon music and more was shared online with sites that allowed you to share audio.Last in the digital media development was video. YouTube definitely made video sharing a hugely popular form of modern media distribution and this is continuing to grow as we speak today. Now with new technology seen in things like the iPhone,  this new form of virtual medi a  is available in handheld devices as well, and no doubt  this sector  is only going to continue to grow in the future (Rogers 2006). Now that you understand a bit more about the technology side, you may be wondering how it can help your business.Well businesses are using digital media for marketing more and more today, realizing that there is a huge marketing field out there and that  it can help to draw in visitors and can even provide better search engine visibility with you. Text content can be kept updated on your site and helpful content is a great part of good marketing. Expertise in your field can really help your business and get traffic flowing into your business website. Photos, charts, diagrams, and models are always popular online and will help you to get more visibility as well.Audio allows you to use music on pages or to do podcasts for your business. Creating videos is a popular method of digital media marketing today, and videos do very well in search engin es (Rogers 2006). With the popularity of digital media, it is definitely important that you continue to create and use it for good marketing and business results. Even if you have to hire someone to help out, the benefits will make it worth the money. So knowing about and using digital media is definitely important for your business success todayProblem statement: Most people accept the idea that the media can influence people. But the degree of that influence, as well as who is most-impacted, when, how and why, have been the subjects of great debate among communication scholars for nearly a century. Media effects refers to the many ways individuals and society may be influenced by both news and entertainment mass media, including film, television, radio, newspapers, books, magazines, websites, video games, and music.To understand digital media effects, it is first critical to consider how media are used and for what purposes. Communication scholars have traditionally fallen into tw o camps – functionalists, who believe the media audience tends to be in control and active, and critical/culturalists who believe the audience has less control and is therefore more passive. The balance may lie somewhere in the middle and may vary from country to country. Purpose of the study: In this paper we are going to study and evaluate the digital media and its effect on children in general.The following text is a general idea: Youth spend an average of ;7 hours/day using media and the vast majority of them have access to a bedroom television, computer, the Internet, a video-game console, and a cell phone. In this paper we review the most recent research on the effects of media on the behavior and health and well-being of children and adolescents. Studies have shown that media can provide information about safe health practices and can foster social connectedness.However, recent evidence raises concerns about media's effects on aggression, sexual behavior, substance use , disordered eating, and academic difficulties. We provide recommendations for parents, practitioners, the media, and policy makers, among others, for ways to increase the benefits and reduce the harm that media can have for the developing child and for adolescents. More than 50 years of media research attests to the significant influence of media on child and adolescent health.Both â€Å"old† media (television, movies, magazines) and â€Å"new† media (the Internet and social networking sites, video/computer games, cell phones) can have an impact on virtually every health concern that practitioners and parents have about young people, including aggressive behavior, risky sexual behavior, substance use, and disordered eating. Although the media are not the leading cause of any of these problems, the research reviewed here suggests that they are significant.Yet, despite the evidence of potential harm, there is also evidence that media can be beneficial for youth (eg, by increasing empathy and acceptance of diversity through modeling of prosocial behaviors and developing children's early literacy skills through educational programming). Those concerned with child and adolescent health need to be aware of the research on the effects of modern media on youth. Theoretical framework: Literature review: Media affect youth not only by displacing time they spend doing homework or sleeping but also by influencing beliefs and behaviors.According to social learning theory, children and adolescents learn by observing and imitating what they see on the screen, particularly when these behaviors seem realistic or are rewarded. Cognitive development theory asserts that children's cognitive capacities at different stages determine if and how they understand media content. For example, children younger than 8 years who are not yet able to comprehend persuasive intent will be more vulnerable to advertising.In addition, media present youth with common â€Å"scriptsâ €  for how to behave in unfamiliar situations such as romantic relationships. Finally, superpeer theory states that the media are like powerful best friends in sometimes making risky behaviors seem like normative behavior. With the variety of theories suggesting a potentially powerful effect of the media and the growing empirical evidence for negative impact, one might hypothesize that parents would take care to limit exposure to detrimental media content.However, the â€Å"third-person effect† (a well-documented phenomenon in the communications literature) shows that teenagers and adults think that the media influence everyone except themselves or their children Violence and Aggression By the age of 18, the average adolescent will have seen an estimated 200 000 acts of violence on television alone. Much of the violence on television and in movies is presented in a sanitized and glamorized fashion, and in children's programming it often is presented as humorous.More than 1 0% of 10- to 14-year-olds saw 40 of the most violent movies in 2003. Both music videos and rap music have become increasingly violent. Interactive media can encourage antisocial beliefs and behavior in children and adolescents, particularly because violence in new media has been found to be prevalent as well. A recent analysis of video games revealed that more than half of all games contain violence, including ;90% rated as appropriate for children aged 10 years and older.Health professionals worry most about first-person shooter video games. In the aftermath of the West Paducah, KY school shooting, it was discovered that the shooter had never fired a real gun in his life before that day, yet his marksmanship was both accurate and lethal. Researchers believe that repeated exposure to mediated violence can lead to anxiety and fear, acceptance of violence as an appropriate means of solving conflict, and desensitization, with resulting increases in aggression and decreases in altruism. In particular, the portrayal of justifiable violence that is common in American media—â€Å"good guys versus bad guys†Ã¢â‚¬â€places children at risk because it is so powerfully reinforcing. The relationship between media violence and real-life aggression is nearly as strong as the impact of cigarette smoking on lung cancer not everyone who smokes will get lung cancer, and not everyone who views media violence will become aggressive themselves. However, the connection is significant. The most problematic forms of media violence include attractive and unpunished perpetrators, no harm to victims, realism, and humor. SexResearchers investigating the impact of exposure to sexual content in media on adolescent sexual beliefs and early sexual initiation have found modest but significant associations, particularly in the realm of pornography. In a national sample of 1500 10- to 17-year-olds, nearly half of the Internet users had been exposed to on-line pornography in the prev ious year. In a sample of middle-school youth, exposure to sexually explicit (X-rated) content predicted perpetration of sexual harassment (for males), more permissive sexual norms, having oral sex, and engaging in sexual intercourse while in high school.Longitudinal studies now exist that have linked heavy exposure to sexual content in mainstream media with more rapid progression of sexual activity, earlier coital behavior, greater risk for and unplanned pregnancy, and sexually transmitted disease. One explanation for this relationship may lie in the role of the media as a â€Å"superpeer† that gives adolescent audiences a consistent message that sex is normative and risk free. In addition, media play an important role in providing sexual information to adolescents in the United States and in shaping their beliefs about how males and females behave in romantic relationships.Television shows geared toward teenagers actually have more sexual content than adult-oriented shows, yet there is little mention of the need for contraception or for responsibility. Virtually every Western country makes birth control available to adolescents, including allowing birth control advertisements in the media, but the major US television networks balk at airing ads for contraception. This flies in the face of the fact that a substantial body of evidence shows that giving teenagers’ access to condoms does not lead to earlier sexual activity.Parents and child advocates often express concern over children connecting with strangers on-line. Although there have been disturbing cases of Internet sexual predatory activity by adults on children, most recent studies of Internet safety have suggested that sexual solicitation of minors is more likely to occur by other minors. Social networking sites such as MySpace and Facebook enable adolescents to present themselves publicly, sometimes in very sexually suggestive ways; however, adult on-line predators are not using social n etworking sites to find or entice their victims.One national survey of â€Å"sexing† with cell phones, conducted with 13- to 19-year-olds, revealed that 20% had sent and 48% had received sexual messages. However, social networking sites can also be used prosocially for safer-sex campaigns, for example. Substance Use In the United States, more than $22 billion is spent marketing and advertising drugs ($13 billion on tobacco, $5 billion on alcohol, and $4 billion on prescription drugs), and many research studies have shown that it has a significant impact on adolescent use.Children and teenagers can also see considerable alcohol and drug content in on-line videos. Recent studies of social networking sites have found that substance abuse is referenced in 40% of the profiles. Portrayals of tobacco are also prevalent in the movies: ? 70% of movies made in the United States today contains smoking, and smoking is rarely associated with negative health outcomes. Longitudinal prospect ive studies have revealed that exposure to movie smoking at baseline (grades 5–8) predicts smoking initiation 1 to 8 years later.Experimental research has helped illuminate why exposure to movie characters' smoking is associated with smoking initiation: viewers who identify with the storyline and the characters are more likely to increase their intention to smoke. Obesity and Eating Disorders Numerous American and international longitudinal studies (one of them as long as 26 years in duration) have shown that media use is contributing to the current epidemic of obesity worldwide. However, the mechanism for why heavy television-viewing, in particular, is predictive of children's weight status is unclear. Food marketing may be 1 culprit.Children and teenagers see 4400–7600 ads per year for junk food and fast food on television alone. Randomized, controlled experiments have provided evidence that exposure to junk food advertising has an impact on children's food beliefs a nd preferences. The Internet now presents a new concern. As the Kaiser Foundation noted, â€Å"There is a vast amount of food related content online, with the potential to significantly expand and deepen children's exposure to food marketing messages. Apart from the influence of advertising, eating while viewing may lead to greater food consumption.College-aged students showed significantly greater consumption of food when subjects were watching television versus listening to classical music. The investigators hypothesized that satiety cues are suppressed in viewing conditions. Although the evidence that television-viewing displaces physical activity is equivocal, researchers are now examining whether heavy media use, particularly at nighttime, displaces sleep. Children who do not get enough sleep are more likely to engage in sedentary behaviors (such as television-viewing) and less likely to engage in physical activity.The media play a crucial role in the formation of body self-im age and may be responsible for creating unrealistic expectations and body dissatisfaction. Females who are regular readers of fashion and beauty magazines in early adolescence are more likely to suffer from a distorted body image during their teenaged years. A natural field experiment in Fiji revealed that the prevalence of eating disorders increased dramatically after the introduction of American television programs, which show excessively thin female lead characters.On the Internet, there are now ;100 proanorexia Web sites that not only encourage disordered eating but offer specific advice on purging, severely restricting caloric intake, and exercising excessively. School Performance and Learning Problems The possibility of a connection between television-viewing and ADD or other learning disabilities is currently an issue of great controversy. An initial study in 2004 revealed an association between daily hours of television-viewing at the ages of 1 to 2 years and subsequent atte ntional problems at the age of 7.However, a more recent study in which 59 children with ADD and 106 comparison children were examined actually revealed that the latter had more impairment in their cognitive processes after viewing television than the former. At least 4 studies have shown an impact on academic performance, especially if there is a television set in the child's or teenager's bedroom. Other Health Effects Heavy television-viewing has also been associated with hypercholesterolemia, hypertension, an increased prevalence of asthma, sleep disorders, mood disorders, psychological distress, and depression.These were largely correlational studies and, therefore, did not necessarily show cause and effect. Prosocial Effects Despite the negative effects listed above, the media can be powerfully prosocial and educational. Children and teenagers can learn antiviolence attitudes, empathy, tolerance toward people of other races and ethnicities, and respect for their elders. Video ga mes can be beneficial as well, including improving compliance with chemotherapy regimens in adolescents with cancer.Important and useful public messages can be successfully embedded into primetime television shows that are popular with adolescents. In an episode of the television program Friends, for example, Rachel tells her boyfriend Ross that she is pregnant although they had used a condom. A national telephone survey conducted with Friends viewers after the episode aired found that adolescents learned that condoms are not fool-proof and were more likely to discuss contraception with their parents.Similarly, a recent episode of Gray's Anatomy was effective in teaching viewers about HIV and pregnancy. Research into the impact of digital media on relationship formation and maintenance has revealed that on-line communication and on-line self-disclosure can stimulate adolescents' social connectedness and, thereby, their well-being. However, the benefits of socializing on-line are not equal for every child or adolescent. The positive Internet effect holds only when adolescents predominantly talk with their existing friends.Communication technologies that are most often used to communicate with strangers (eg, chat in a public chat room) or more solitary forms of Internet use (such as surfing the Web) have negative effects on social connectedness. TRADITIONAL MEDIA AND NEW MEDIA Children and adolescents spend more time with media than they do in any other activity except for sleeping—an average of ;7 hours/day. Children's bedrooms are replete with media technology: by 2005, two thirds had a television set, one half had a VCR or DVD player or video-game console, and nearly one third had Internet access or a computer.Media impact is increased significantly with the presence of a bedroom television: viewing increases 1 to 2 hours/day, risk of overweight increases by 31%, and the likelihood of smoking doubles. When a television is in the bedroom, parents are le ss able to monitor viewing habits , children participate in fewer activities such as reading and hobbies, and sleep is shortened Field Observation: Focus group: One of the aims of my research paper was to understand what children feel about the way they are affected by the Digital media. To do this i used one of our qualitative methods – focus group.A focus group is a method that is used by researchers to find out what people’s opinions and views are. During a focus group the researcher(s) will ask questions to stimulate discussion within the group, while taking note of what people are saying about particular issues. The focus group were conducted in Notre dame college-lwaize in total, 10 young people (5 males and 5 females) took part, who were all aged between 9 – 12year. Question asked during the focus group: * Do Digital media take a lot of your time? * Do you feel lost when you are not connected? Do you go online to check for new updates? * Do you feel you a lways have to go online to learn/view information? * Do you forget to eat when you are connected? * Do you use online social networking to retrieve any type of information? * Does spending time on social networking affects on your grades in a negative way? * Do you think you can stop yourself from always connecting online? * Are you unable to continue your day without checking for updates of news / friends online? * Has social networking sites made you become depressed? Do you enter sexual websites? * Do you talk with stranger people online? Analysis: After the focus groups were done, the information was analyzed and i was able to put together the information to have a basic result. I can say that each person had his/her own view, the information was not possible to evaluate and conduct on a percentage scale. The focus group study it showed that the males spend more time on social networking sites then men. They believe they do spend more time online which allows them to play ad ent er many kind of websites.All participants believe online social networking is time consuming and has its negatives. Some of the negatives given about online social networking. Some positives were: it has allowed a number of people to be curious to want to know more information, to learn more, to be able to communicate with people in different countries and be entertained. Solution and recommendation: Parents should limit total screen time for children older than 2 years to no more than 1 to 2 hours/day, and avoid screen time for children younger than 2 years.Also keep children's bedrooms free of screen media; and co-view media with their children and discuss the content.. Parents also need to avoid exposing young children to PG-13– and R-rated movies, given the prevalence of violent and sexual content in higher-rated film sand the new evidence that movie scenes that depict drinking alcohol and smoking may be very influential in teenagers' decisions to use alcohol and tobacco. In addition, parents can be mindful of their own media practices, because studies have shown that the strongest predictor of children's heavy media use is parents' heavy media use.Parental efforts to interpret, elaborate, and provide supplemental information on topics introduced by television have been found to be successful in countering negative or harmful content. In a recent study on exposure to sexual media content, adolescents who report that they discuss the content of what they see on television are less likely to engage in risky sexual activity. Moreover, Schools have not kept pace with modern media, especially in violence prevention, drug prevention, and sex education programs.With the amount of sexual suggestiveness currently displayed on television and in movies, schools no longer have any excuse for not providing comprehensive school-based sex education programs for children and adolescents, including full discussions of contraception and discussions of how sex and sex uality are portrayed in the media. Similarly, drug education programs must progress beyond scare tactics to incorporate principles of media education, teaching young people how to deconstruct alcohol and tobacco ads and, therefore, become more resilient.Conclusion: During the past 50 years, thousands of research studies have revealed that the media can be a powerful teacher of children and adolescents and have a profound impact on their health. To date, too little has been done by parents, health care practitioners, schools, the entertainment industry, or the government to protect children and adolescents from harmful media effects and to maximize the powerfully prosocial aspects of modern media. More research is needed, but sufficient data exist to warrant both concern and increased action. Digital Media Introduction: You may have heard of digital media, but you may have no idea what it is and how it can help you out when it comes to marketing. It's definitely important that you get up to speed so you can use this to benefit your business. Basically digital media refers to any type of electronic media out there. Today media can be accessed in many ways, including with hand held devices like mobile phones, laptops, desktops, mp3 players, and more. Digital media must be stored in an electronic way, so there is a lot of digital content on the internet today, including text content, pictures, audio content, as well as video content.Through the history of internet, digital media has been developing in various ways. Here's we'll take a look at how it has affected the Internet and ways that it may be integrated moving forwards (Rogers 2006). One type of digital media is text; this in fact represented the very first explosion of  this  type of content  out there on the Internet. When t he Internet first got big, there was an explosion of content on the web, especially with all the text editors and word processing options out there today (Rogers 2006).Larger companies started to put date on computers instead of storing it in cabinets, and the internet definitely allowed a great way to share, transfer, and store content as well. As the Internet grew, images began to appear. Instead of just text emails, soon people could send photos, and soon photo sites for sharing photos began to pop up. Then in the middle 1990s, audio began to become an important part of digital media with the mp3 files that could be easily used. Soon music and more was shared online with sites that allowed you to share audio.Last in the digital media development was video. YouTube definitely made video sharing a hugely popular form of modern media distribution and this is continuing to grow as we speak today. Now with new technology seen in things like the iPhone,  this new form of virtual medi a  is available in handheld devices as well, and no doubt  this sector  is only going to continue to grow in the future (Rogers 2006). Now that you understand a bit more about the technology side, you may be wondering how it can help your business.Well businesses are using digital media for marketing more and more today, realizing that there is a huge marketing field out there and that  it can help to draw in visitors and can even provide better search engine visibility with you. Text content can be kept updated on your site and helpful content is a great part of good marketing. Expertise in your field can really help your business and get traffic flowing into your business website. Photos, charts, diagrams, and models are always popular online and will help you to get more visibility as well.Audio allows you to use music on pages or to do podcasts for your business. Creating videos is a popular method of digital media marketing today, and videos do very well in search engin es (Rogers 2006). With the popularity of digital media, it is definitely important that you continue to create and use it for good marketing and business results. Even if you have to hire someone to help out, the benefits will make it worth the money. So knowing about and using digital media is definitely important for your business success todayProblem statement: Most people accept the idea that the media can influence people. But the degree of that influence, as well as who is most-impacted, when, how and why, have been the subjects of great debate among communication scholars for nearly a century. Media effects refers to the many ways individuals and society may be influenced by both news and entertainment mass media, including film, television, radio, newspapers, books, magazines, websites, video games, and music.To understand digital media effects, it is first critical to consider how media are used and for what purposes. Communication scholars have traditionally fallen into tw o camps – functionalists, who believe the media audience tends to be in control and active, and critical/culturalists who believe the audience has less control and is therefore more passive. The balance may lie somewhere in the middle and may vary from country to country. Purpose of the study: In this paper we are going to study and evaluate the digital media and its effect on children in general.The following text is a general idea: Youth spend an average of ;7 hours/day using media and the vast majority of them have access to a bedroom television, computer, the Internet, a video-game console, and a cell phone. In this paper we review the most recent research on the effects of media on the behavior and health and well-being of children and adolescents. Studies have shown that media can provide information about safe health practices and can foster social connectedness.However, recent evidence raises concerns about media's effects on aggression, sexual behavior, substance use , disordered eating, and academic difficulties. We provide recommendations for parents, practitioners, the media, and policy makers, among others, for ways to increase the benefits and reduce the harm that media can have for the developing child and for adolescents. More than 50 years of media research attests to the significant influence of media on child and adolescent health.Both â€Å"old† media (television, movies, magazines) and â€Å"new† media (the Internet and social networking sites, video/computer games, cell phones) can have an impact on virtually every health concern that practitioners and parents have about young people, including aggressive behavior, risky sexual behavior, substance use, and disordered eating. Although the media are not the leading cause of any of these problems, the research reviewed here suggests that they are significant.Yet, despite the evidence of potential harm, there is also evidence that media can be beneficial for youth (eg, by increasing empathy and acceptance of diversity through modeling of prosocial behaviors and developing children's early literacy skills through educational programming). Those concerned with child and adolescent health need to be aware of the research on the effects of modern media on youth. Theoretical framework: Literature review: Media affect youth not only by displacing time they spend doing homework or sleeping but also by influencing beliefs and behaviors.According to social learning theory, children and adolescents learn by observing and imitating what they see on the screen, particularly when these behaviors seem realistic or are rewarded. Cognitive development theory asserts that children's cognitive capacities at different stages determine if and how they understand media content. For example, children younger than 8 years who are not yet able to comprehend persuasive intent will be more vulnerable to advertising.In addition, media present youth with common â€Å"scriptsâ €  for how to behave in unfamiliar situations such as romantic relationships. Finally, superpeer theory states that the media are like powerful best friends in sometimes making risky behaviors seem like normative behavior. With the variety of theories suggesting a potentially powerful effect of the media and the growing empirical evidence for negative impact, one might hypothesize that parents would take care to limit exposure to detrimental media content.However, the â€Å"third-person effect† (a well-documented phenomenon in the communications literature) shows that teenagers and adults think that the media influence everyone except themselves or their children Violence and Aggression By the age of 18, the average adolescent will have seen an estimated 200 000 acts of violence on television alone. Much of the violence on television and in movies is presented in a sanitized and glamorized fashion, and in children's programming it often is presented as humorous.More than 1 0% of 10- to 14-year-olds saw 40 of the most violent movies in 2003. Both music videos and rap music have become increasingly violent. Interactive media can encourage antisocial beliefs and behavior in children and adolescents, particularly because violence in new media has been found to be prevalent as well. A recent analysis of video games revealed that more than half of all games contain violence, including ;90% rated as appropriate for children aged 10 years and older.Health professionals worry most about first-person shooter video games. In the aftermath of the West Paducah, KY school shooting, it was discovered that the shooter had never fired a real gun in his life before that day, yet his marksmanship was both accurate and lethal. Researchers believe that repeated exposure to mediated violence can lead to anxiety and fear, acceptance of violence as an appropriate means of solving conflict, and desensitization, with resulting increases in aggression and decreases in altruism. In particular, the portrayal of justifiable violence that is common in American media—â€Å"good guys versus bad guys†Ã¢â‚¬â€places children at risk because it is so powerfully reinforcing. The relationship between media violence and real-life aggression is nearly as strong as the impact of cigarette smoking on lung cancer not everyone who smokes will get lung cancer, and not everyone who views media violence will become aggressive themselves. However, the connection is significant. The most problematic forms of media violence include attractive and unpunished perpetrators, no harm to victims, realism, and humor. SexResearchers investigating the impact of exposure to sexual content in media on adolescent sexual beliefs and early sexual initiation have found modest but significant associations, particularly in the realm of pornography. In a national sample of 1500 10- to 17-year-olds, nearly half of the Internet users had been exposed to on-line pornography in the prev ious year. In a sample of middle-school youth, exposure to sexually explicit (X-rated) content predicted perpetration of sexual harassment (for males), more permissive sexual norms, having oral sex, and engaging in sexual intercourse while in high school.Longitudinal studies now exist that have linked heavy exposure to sexual content in mainstream media with more rapid progression of sexual activity, earlier coital behavior, greater risk for and unplanned pregnancy, and sexually transmitted disease. One explanation for this relationship may lie in the role of the media as a â€Å"superpeer† that gives adolescent audiences a consistent message that sex is normative and risk free. In addition, media play an important role in providing sexual information to adolescents in the United States and in shaping their beliefs about how males and females behave in romantic relationships.Television shows geared toward teenagers actually have more sexual content than adult-oriented shows, yet there is little mention of the need for contraception or for responsibility. Virtually every Western country makes birth control available to adolescents, including allowing birth control advertisements in the media, but the major US television networks balk at airing ads for contraception. This flies in the face of the fact that a substantial body of evidence shows that giving teenagers’ access to condoms does not lead to earlier sexual activity.Parents and child advocates often express concern over children connecting with strangers on-line. Although there have been disturbing cases of Internet sexual predatory activity by adults on children, most recent studies of Internet safety have suggested that sexual solicitation of minors is more likely to occur by other minors. Social networking sites such as MySpace and Facebook enable adolescents to present themselves publicly, sometimes in very sexually suggestive ways; however, adult on-line predators are not using social n etworking sites to find or entice their victims.One national survey of â€Å"sexing† with cell phones, conducted with 13- to 19-year-olds, revealed that 20% had sent and 48% had received sexual messages. However, social networking sites can also be used prosocially for safer-sex campaigns, for example. Substance Use In the United States, more than $22 billion is spent marketing and advertising drugs ($13 billion on tobacco, $5 billion on alcohol, and $4 billion on prescription drugs), and many research studies have shown that it has a significant impact on adolescent use.Children and teenagers can also see considerable alcohol and drug content in on-line videos. Recent studies of social networking sites have found that substance abuse is referenced in 40% of the profiles. Portrayals of tobacco are also prevalent in the movies: ? 70% of movies made in the United States today contains smoking, and smoking is rarely associated with negative health outcomes. Longitudinal prospect ive studies have revealed that exposure to movie smoking at baseline (grades 5–8) predicts smoking initiation 1 to 8 years later.Experimental research has helped illuminate why exposure to movie characters' smoking is associated with smoking initiation: viewers who identify with the storyline and the characters are more likely to increase their intention to smoke. Obesity and Eating Disorders Numerous American and international longitudinal studies (one of them as long as 26 years in duration) have shown that media use is contributing to the current epidemic of obesity worldwide. However, the mechanism for why heavy television-viewing, in particular, is predictive of children's weight status is unclear. Food marketing may be 1 culprit.Children and teenagers see 4400–7600 ads per year for junk food and fast food on television alone. Randomized, controlled experiments have provided evidence that exposure to junk food advertising has an impact on children's food beliefs a nd preferences. The Internet now presents a new concern. As the Kaiser Foundation noted, â€Å"There is a vast amount of food related content online, with the potential to significantly expand and deepen children's exposure to food marketing messages. Apart from the influence of advertising, eating while viewing may lead to greater food consumption.College-aged students showed significantly greater consumption of food when subjects were watching television versus listening to classical music. The investigators hypothesized that satiety cues are suppressed in viewing conditions. Although the evidence that television-viewing displaces physical activity is equivocal, researchers are now examining whether heavy media use, particularly at nighttime, displaces sleep. Children who do not get enough sleep are more likely to engage in sedentary behaviors (such as television-viewing) and less likely to engage in physical activity.The media play a crucial role in the formation of body self-im age and may be responsible for creating unrealistic expectations and body dissatisfaction. Females who are regular readers of fashion and beauty magazines in early adolescence are more likely to suffer from a distorted body image during their teenaged years. A natural field experiment in Fiji revealed that the prevalence of eating disorders increased dramatically after the introduction of American television programs, which show excessively thin female lead characters.On the Internet, there are now ;100 proanorexia Web sites that not only encourage disordered eating but offer specific advice on purging, severely restricting caloric intake, and exercising excessively. School Performance and Learning Problems The possibility of a connection between television-viewing and ADD or other learning disabilities is currently an issue of great controversy. An initial study in 2004 revealed an association between daily hours of television-viewing at the ages of 1 to 2 years and subsequent atte ntional problems at the age of 7.However, a more recent study in which 59 children with ADD and 106 comparison children were examined actually revealed that the latter had more impairment in their cognitive processes after viewing television than the former. At least 4 studies have shown an impact on academic performance, especially if there is a television set in the child's or teenager's bedroom. Other Health Effects Heavy television-viewing has also been associated with hypercholesterolemia, hypertension, an increased prevalence of asthma, sleep disorders, mood disorders, psychological distress, and depression.These were largely correlational studies and, therefore, did not necessarily show cause and effect. Prosocial Effects Despite the negative effects listed above, the media can be powerfully prosocial and educational. Children and teenagers can learn antiviolence attitudes, empathy, tolerance toward people of other races and ethnicities, and respect for their elders. Video ga mes can be beneficial as well, including improving compliance with chemotherapy regimens in adolescents with cancer.Important and useful public messages can be successfully embedded into primetime television shows that are popular with adolescents. In an episode of the television program Friends, for example, Rachel tells her boyfriend Ross that she is pregnant although they had used a condom. A national telephone survey conducted with Friends viewers after the episode aired found that adolescents learned that condoms are not fool-proof and were more likely to discuss contraception with their parents.Similarly, a recent episode of Gray's Anatomy was effective in teaching viewers about HIV and pregnancy. Research into the impact of digital media on relationship formation and maintenance has revealed that on-line communication and on-line self-disclosure can stimulate adolescents' social connectedness and, thereby, their well-being. However, the benefits of socializing on-line are not equal for every child or adolescent. The positive Internet effect holds only when adolescents predominantly talk with their existing friends.Communication technologies that are most often used to communicate with strangers (eg, chat in a public chat room) or more solitary forms of Internet use (such as surfing the Web) have negative effects on social connectedness. TRADITIONAL MEDIA AND NEW MEDIA Children and adolescents spend more time with media than they do in any other activity except for sleeping—an average of ;7 hours/day. Children's bedrooms are replete with media technology: by 2005, two thirds had a television set, one half had a VCR or DVD player or video-game console, and nearly one third had Internet access or a computer.Media impact is increased significantly with the presence of a bedroom television: viewing increases 1 to 2 hours/day, risk of overweight increases by 31%, and the likelihood of smoking doubles. When a television is in the bedroom, parents are le ss able to monitor viewing habits , children participate in fewer activities such as reading and hobbies, and sleep is shortened Field Observation: Focus group: One of the aims of my research paper was to understand what children feel about the way they are affected by the Digital media. To do this i used one of our qualitative methods – focus group.A focus group is a method that is used by researchers to find out what people’s opinions and views are. During a focus group the researcher(s) will ask questions to stimulate discussion within the group, while taking note of what people are saying about particular issues. The focus group were conducted in Notre dame college-lwaize in total, 10 young people (5 males and 5 females) took part, who were all aged between 9 – 12year. Question asked during the focus group: * Do Digital media take a lot of your time? * Do you feel lost when you are not connected? Do you go online to check for new updates? * Do you feel you a lways have to go online to learn/view information? * Do you forget to eat when you are connected? * Do you use online social networking to retrieve any type of information? * Does spending time on social networking affects on your grades in a negative way? * Do you think you can stop yourself from always connecting online? * Are you unable to continue your day without checking for updates of news / friends online? * Has social networking sites made you become depressed? Do you enter sexual websites? * Do you talk with stranger people online? Analysis: After the focus groups were done, the information was analyzed and i was able to put together the information to have a basic result. I can say that each person had his/her own view, the information was not possible to evaluate and conduct on a percentage scale. The focus group study it showed that the males spend more time on social networking sites then men. They believe they do spend more time online which allows them to play ad ent er many kind of websites.All participants believe online social networking is time consuming and has its negatives. Some of the negatives given about online social networking. Some positives were: it has allowed a number of people to be curious to want to know more information, to learn more, to be able to communicate with people in different countries and be entertained. Solution and recommendation: Parents should limit total screen time for children older than 2 years to no more than 1 to 2 hours/day, and avoid screen time for children younger than 2 years.Also keep children's bedrooms free of screen media; and co-view media with their children and discuss the content.. Parents also need to avoid exposing young children to PG-13– and R-rated movies, given the prevalence of violent and sexual content in higher-rated film sand the new evidence that movie scenes that depict drinking alcohol and smoking may be very influential in teenagers' decisions to use alcohol and tobacco. In addition, parents can be mindful of their own media practices, because studies have shown that the strongest predictor of children's heavy media use is parents' heavy media use.Parental efforts to interpret, elaborate, and provide supplemental information on topics introduced by television have been found to be successful in countering negative or harmful content. In a recent study on exposure to sexual media content, adolescents who report that they discuss the content of what they see on television are less likely to engage in risky sexual activity. Moreover, Schools have not kept pace with modern media, especially in violence prevention, drug prevention, and sex education programs.With the amount of sexual suggestiveness currently displayed on television and in movies, schools no longer have any excuse for not providing comprehensive school-based sex education programs for children and adolescents, including full discussions of contraception and discussions of how sex and sex uality are portrayed in the media. Similarly, drug education programs must progress beyond scare tactics to incorporate principles of media education, teaching young people how to deconstruct alcohol and tobacco ads and, therefore, become more resilient.Conclusion: During the past 50 years, thousands of research studies have revealed that the media can be a powerful teacher of children and adolescents and have a profound impact on their health. To date, too little has been done by parents, health care practitioners, schools, the entertainment industry, or the government to protect children and adolescents from harmful media effects and to maximize the powerfully prosocial aspects of modern media. More research is needed, but sufficient data exist to warrant both concern and increased action.