After using technology at school each day, Tiffany Stoudt, a senior at Susquehannock High School, comes home to surf the Internet and chat with friends.
"I don't talk on the phone as much as I text. I'll send about 200 texts in three days," said Stoudt, who also spends about five hours per day on the Internet.
From the media Stoudt is exposed to, she said she notices a definite message of conformity.
The mass media, since World War II, has promoted a thinner body image to consumers, according to the National Institute of Media and the Family. These images are broadcast to the 98 percent of American households that own a TV, according to a 2001 U.S. Census Bureau survey.
What effect does this continuous flow of media have on teenagers? Consider the results caused by Hollywood-created perfection.
Katelin Allison, a junior at Dallastown Area High School, sees these unrealistic ideals in magazines.
"They discuss extreme exercise routines and diets," she said. "The idea of 'stick thin' is the idea of perfect. I think that's really bad on [teens]. I see that and think 'I want to be like that.' I see it in my friends, [too]."
Julia Orlidge, a senior at Susquehannock High School, said she notices advertisers' ways of relaying cause and effect, such as promoting a new diet pill while picturing a beautiful, slim model who thanks the diet pill for her fabulous new looks.
"[The products] are always so expensive" she said. "They just want your money. [What they say] is not true."
Allison said she realizes the digital techniques advertisers use to create artificial worlds.
"It's unrealistic. Everyone [in magazines] is airbrushed, stuff you would never see [in reality]. It's all a big game; the advertisers just say 'what can we do to get this customer?' It makes me angry."
Susquehannock High School teacher John Loucks has taught students in his visual communications classes about the digital arts and their uses for about the past 15 years. Loucks notices a benefit to using such technology in school, such as knowing what to look for in terms of deceptive media.
"Question everything you see," he said. "Say, 'is this real?' I learned to believe nothing you hear and only half of what you see."
With such images broadcast across the nation, as Allison said, Americans should not be shocked to learn that the National Association of Anorexia Nervosa and Associated Disorders estimates eight million females in the United States have an eating disorder.
Recently, Orlidge saw a friend battle an eating disorder. The girl was 18 years old and 105 pounds when she realized she was not healthy, and motivated herself back to a normal lifestyle.
Other problems, just as serious, coincide with wanting a smaller waistline, Allison said.
"It takes up so much of your life," she said. "You can drown yourself in reading a magazine or watching TV; it could take away from all the stuff in your life. I see girls who are skipping lunch and all of a sudden they start to lose weight. It starts out innocently, then all of a sudden it's a habit."
However, there is some value in these media images, as Orlidge said. Several years ago, she began to exercise regularly to lose weight and conquer low self-esteem. Now she feels happy with her appearance, she said.
"I'm glad I worried about the way I looked and made the effort to lose weight," she said. "Some girls just take it too far."
But they do not have to, said Allison, who recommends avoiding situations that increase the pressure of looking "perfect."
Stoudt also has advice for battling insecurities.
"Don't worry about what others think," she said. "Eventually you will leave high school and will need to form your own opinions; you can't do that if you are worried about other people judging you."
By Lauren Amoros
