Alyssa Gauna Negative Influence Of Celebrities Summary

Alyssa Gauna, a journalist, is very passionate about her controversial view regarding the “Negative Influences of celebrities on teens”, believing that we should use technology to stop famous people having an impact on teenagers. In order to get her points across she generalises celebrities and teenagers, which I disagree with as she is stereotyping both groups of individuals. Due to her regular stereotyping, I also disagree with many of her points or only agree partly, depending on the circumstances. In addition, I do not think that celebrity culture is negatively affecting teenagers; in fact, I believe that it can have positive influences and at times, simply no influence at all. A celebrity is a famous person, especially in entertainment

Alyssa writes that ‘the media is everywhere society turns…With the click of a button’, which I agree with as we all know how easy it is to find out information about people using the power of the internet and this is especially true regarding celebrities. The ‘PewResearchCentre’ completed a survey in 2012 and discovered that ‘95% of all teenagers are now online’. With smartphones, laptops, computer and tablets being widely available, with internet access, it is perfectly understandable that many teenagers can feel a connection to celebrities as they can view their accounts (24 hours a day, 7 days a week-the internet never closes), for example on Twitter, and it is easy to become fascinated by celebrities’ out-of-the-ordinary lives. However, mine and Gauna’s opinion could be countered to say that teenagers may simply just be talking to friends online and not necessarily finding out about people’s lives.The internet gives us the power of connection and if we use it correctly can benefit us greatly, for example giving us answers to important questions or helping us research for projects and homework. It is true that the internet gives us access to everybody’s lives, however, it gives us access to a whole range of information and can be useful in every walk of life, whether you’re a student or a business employee,conducting market research,which

However, I disagree with Gauna’s point especially due to the extremely publicised fact that the celebrities saw the consequences of their behaviour means it can discourage teens committing the same or similar crimes. Albert Bandura’s social learning theory published that in order to learn from behaviour an “internal reward” needs to be recognised therefore if teenagers see no benefit in the long term of illicit behaviour such as drug taking they will not feel the urge to copy. in addition BBC news research proves that young people are “more cynical...about the influence of celebrities” like many they also feel that “celebrities such as Pete Doherty are bad role models”.BBC news also reported that “fathers were three times more popular than celebrities” with mothers being “admired”.This research establishes evidence that even though teenagers look up to older people, they do not seek fun in celebrities and naturally look up