In today’s society kids are growing up with factors that are very different from what parents grew up with. Starting with technology. Kids’ actions and beliefs are influenced by what they see and hear, and less by what they are told. TV especially is a major influence on kids’ behavior and views on society. These factors include body image, diversity, and influence on societal beliefs. This last one is less obvious, for example in elementary school and high school I watched Jessie, Liv and Madi, and Wizards of Waverly Place. All of these shows have main characters in high school, these shows are what I based high school off on and how I expected high school to be like. TV can influence people’s expectations of real-life situations. Tv, especially Disney, (at least when I was a child) had very little diversity, and many of the main characters were skinny, pretty, straight, white women. This shows both a lack of diversity in race and sexuality. It can also create body image issues when little kids grow up with role models that look like actual models. Creating a stereotypical belief that all women are supposed to look that way when they are older. 

Although many tv programs including Disney are starting to work on becoming more diverse, there is still a long way to go to create shows that support and show all bodies and sexualities. Since our generation is the first to be influenced by tv and some of us will raise children in the next 15 ish years, I believe that we are the solution to help future generations understand and analyze what they see on technology. Learning how to analyze shows and media will not only help our generation understand factors that have influenced us without our knowledge but it will also help the next generations. This is a goal of many feminists, as seen in many of our texts including “You Say Nature, I Say Nurture… Let’s Call The Whole Thing Off” by Suzanna Danuta Walters. Whether it is a younger sibling, a kid being babysat, or our own children. If our generation gets educated on how we were and kids are being influenced by television then we can be more attentive to what we are watching and what the kids around us are watching. We have the ability to prevent kids from watching certain shows, although that method may not work because kids have access to their own phones and computers earlier. Rather than attempting to control our kids’ freedom, we need to equip them with the ability to understand and see what is wrong with shows. This limits parents from being super controlling while giving kids the tools they need to analyze what they see on television. 

Once you start to analyze television shows you begin to realize the number of issues that are ignored or looked past. These issues need to be understood and recognized. It will take time to completely fix this issue, although many television programs have already begun to recognize and fix this issue and expand their diversity. And even though there is change, our generation, including the students at Davidson, needs to recognize these issues so they can prevent future generations from perceiving these shows as reality. A class that analyzes televisions and technological physiological effects on kids and teens would benefit our generation and future generations.