As the hours dragged by, useless information painfully seeped into my brain. Just like myself, many other young adults spend hours upon hours on the internet everyday but teenagers can easily be manipulated by media (and social media) as they’re going through tough changes in their body.

From the ages of 13-18, humans go through a lot of hormonal and physical changes to their body.  Along with these changes, teens can be surrounded by unfavorable peer pressure online as they can feel there is a level of perfection that has to be met. When teenagers are exposed to images of the ideal teen life, it can make them feel as if they were drowning in a sea of expectations; building tension, and lowering self esteem.

Once wrong click online can lead to a big waste of time and a whole new world. Seeing models wearing or holding a product can lead to teens comparing their body to that of the models. But this isn’t healthy as it can lower one’s self esteem. Most teens know they will never look as flawless as the people on magazines, ads, or commercials but it doesn’t stop some from  a harsh personal critique that leads to blaming oneself for not being able to achieve the beauty and confidence women in ads possess. Even though I know the image is deceiving, my brain still puts me down.

It’s even worse when ads employ teenagers, it drives me completely insane. It’s hard enough trying to keep up with school work but then seeing perfect models with clear faces and a slim body does not help. If anything, it is a constant reminder about what most teens will never be. Not all teenagers can be a model and to lead teens to believe this could happen creates an unpleasant and unrealistic sense of hope to look perfect.

Rather than targeting teenagers with unrealistic ads, a more mature audience should be the focus. Since teens are visually attracted to ads, by adding more factual information, teens may be less likely to view these ads as younger kids may not compare themselves to statistics. Such a shift would educate adults and teenagers, while preventing teens from being targeted. Appealing to a larger audience would also help the companies trying to sell products as the more people that see the adds, the greater the chance for more profit.

Teenagers are still learning more about themselves but targeting them is unacceptable. It’s not right to say what teens should be or can be when they don’t know even know who they are.