How Teenagers Treat Media

Part 1.

The Role of the Mass Media
It’s impossible to imagine our life without mass media. TV, radio, newspapers, magazines and online programmes are everywhere. Being around us all the time, they have a strong influence on our mood, feelings, ideas, attitudes to life and politics. They inform, educate and entertain people. They also influence the way people look at the world and make them change their views. Mass media shapes public opinion. But the mass media offer both advantages and disadvantages. Of course, radio, television, the press and the internet are valuable; the mass media are known to be the fourth estate. Firstly, we always get the latest news for we can get everything we want from the internet in a few minutes. Secondly, weather forecasts can warn of different natural disasters; so the mass media help people to avoid harm and losses. Then, there is the possibility of having a good time: it’s wonderful to relax sitting in an armchair in front of the screen or reading some newspapers. Nowadays, lots of entertaining, female, musical and fashion magazines, and different TV and radio programs, help us to relax. But there are some drawbacks of the mass media. Sometimes I look at various newspapers and magazines, watch TV news, work with my computer and I suppose the main disadvantage of them is the amount of negative information they portray. Watching the news we learn primarily about wars, crimes, disasters and accidents. I find gossip another minus of the mass media... To cut a long story short, all the negative and false information can cause stress and a bad mood. 1
And finally, TV and computers have a harmful effect on people. A lot of teenagers don’t read books or visit theatres. I want to add that TV and computers can spoil one’s health. Yet, the mass media have more pluses than minuses. In my opinion, it’s a very interesting activity, which makes teens’ life brighter.
Part 2. Teens and Mass Media.

The radio
The radio is turned on most of the time. It doesn't interfere with your activities. You can listen to the radio while doing some work about the house, reading a book or driving a car. On the radio one hear the music, plays, news and various commentaries and discussions. Radio and TV bring into millions of homes not only entertainment and news but also cultural and educational programmes. For instant you can take a course in history, political, economy, management and many other subjects, learn a foreign language by radio. Most Russian teenagers nowadays are not regular listeners to radio. 54 % may occasionally tune in, but they do not try to listen to a program specifically. The main reason teenagers listen to the radio is for music (66 %), but now with online sites of music for free they can choose the songs they want instead of listening to what the radio presenter or DJ chooses.
Teens and Television
2
Millions of people watch TV. In our technological age TV has become a part of daily life. It expands our outlook and enriches our mind because there are different programmes on the arts, history, archeology, technical inventions. The strength of our television lies in its high quality, in its willingness to experiment and its ability to please most tastes. But a peculiar feature of modern TV is a soap opera. Most teenagers find soap operas boring. Besides there is a lot of advertising on TV. The same advertisements are repeated many times every day and this fact bores the viewers. All teenagers I speak to watch TV every day. The most preferable programmes are feature films (23%), discoveries (19%), musical concerts and cartoons (both 14%). Some teens spend hours in front of the television watching their favourite shows and programmes. (37%) of respondents watch TV 3-4 hours a day, and (44%) a bit less. Watching too much television can lead to laziness. Teens that sit in front of the television think they can do homework later. Putting things off and becoming a couch potato often becomes a serious trouble. Teens should be careful with watching too much television. But things are not so bad. Our media try to raise the cultural level of the people or to develop their taste. Many of the TV programmes are excellent; they are made in a good taste and with a great professional skill. There are lots of intellectual TV programs nowadays; they are my favourite ones. I like “What? Where? When? ” and “Details” where I try to answer interesting questions. They are a good exercise to my mind.
The press
3
The press plays an important role in the life of society. Millions of people in their spare time read newspapers. It is impossible to imagine our life without newspapers. Millions of copies of them appear every day. Teenagers have never been active newspaper readers for they can read all information absolutely free on a newspaper website. And the "old media" is not as interesting to teens as it used to be, as it is often late with important events. Teens will often read free papers which also include celebrity gossip and shocking stories .No teenager that I know regularly reads a newspaper, as most do not have the time and can watch the news on the internet or on TV. As the results of our research show the only newspapers that are read are tabloids and freesheets such as Va-bank, Komsomolskaya Pravda, Life, From Hands to Hands, Igromania, mainly because of cost and the fact that the parents buy some of them to read; teenagers are very reluctant to pay for a newspaper. The situation with magazines is better: 21% of teens read magazines (All Stars, Bravo, Liza Girl, etc.) and regularly buy them. The most preferable topics are the fashion, lives of famous people and cosmetics.
Computers and the Internet
Nowadays the most popular Internet service is e-mail. Most of the people use the network only for sending and receiving e-mail messages. They can do it either they are at home or in the internet clubs or at work. Other popular services are available on the Internet too. It is reading news, telnet, FTP servers, etc. 4
Almost all teens nowadays have got computers. Every teenager has some access to the internet being at school or home. At home it is mainly used for fun (such as social networking) and sometimes for homework. 40% of our respondents spend 5-6 hours every day in front of their monitors and 42% a bit less. 18 % spend on the internet more than 6 hours (even at night when their parents sleep and can’t control them). No wonder, they have some health problems, they become restless and nervous. While adults may think that computer games turn teens into criminals and gangsters, they do not. Only 16% of them spend hours at playing games. More often they listen to music (31%), use social networks (26%) and read news (20%).
Mobile Phones
Modern mobile phones nowadays have all functions referred to mass media. Player, radio, photo taking, games, SMS service and especially internet are available for almost all telephone users. 100% of teenagers have mobile phones. Usually, except calling teenagers use their phone for internet service (31 %), as a player (22%) and for video and photo taking (20%). Video messaging or video calling are not used because they are expensive. As most teenagers' phones have Bluetooth support, and Bluetooth is free, they use this function often. It is used to send songs and videos and is another way teenagers get information for free.
Conclusion
To sum everything up I must say that an average Russian teenager listens to the radio (mostly to music), watches TV every day less than 3 hours (basically feature films, cartoons and discovery programmes) and is not interested in reading periodicals. Using a computer and a mobile phone with the internet are really the hot items with young Russian people. 5
So in short, the teens’ world differs much from adults’ one. In both countries, the UK and Russia, it combines music, entertainment and communication with each other. And without doubt it is also some kind of getting information about the world.

Practical importance of this work: This work can be used as an additional material in the course of learning English language at school.
Bibliography
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