Tweenagers

The title of this blog –Tweenagers – straight away probably has you pondering what exactly a ‘Tweenager’ is. Well, it’s a young adolescent that is not yet technically a teenager, but that is starting to act like one from a younger age. They are generally in the age bracket of 8 to 12 years old.

In this modern and highly commercialized society it has started to become very clear that today’s children are growing up a lot quicker than they used to. Is there a pressure on children to grow up a lot quicker than they should be? Are their childhoods being taken away from them?

The media plays a huge role in a child’s lifestyle, be it through television, magazines or the internet. On average, every juvenile spends around 6 hours a day involved in the media in some way. This is longer than the majority of children spend in the classroom every day. The mass media has the opportunity to take advantage of the fact that they have more time to influence children longer than their teacher.

After university each day I walk through the Overgate shopping centre and the amount you see young children between the age of 8 and 12 wearing quite an amount of make-up, designer labels and are in groups, out shopping. This should not be the way in which we see adolescents; trying to grow up far too quickly and following the footsteps of older teenager’s long before they should be. Due to the highly commercialized and consumer driven world we inhabit, it is not allowing youngster’s to have the childhood they should be having. It forces children into a forever more impressionable world that embeds stereotypical values into their minds. In their eyes you’re not ‘cool’ unless you are wearing the latest, top brand clothing and own the latest technology. This impression is vastly gained through what children see and read in the mass media.

Should something be done to reduce the amount of time that adolescents spend involved in the media? Should there be some way to censor the material that is contained within it? In addition to this, is there a way in which we can slow down the rate at which children are growing up? Is this even possible?