MASS MEDIA: GAME CHANGER

Mass Media is now an integral part of everyone’s life; we are surrounded by mass media.
It has already affected many human aspects of life such as knowledge, beliefs, views, perceptions,
and etc. And as time goes on, mass media becomes more profound, and its role in spreading
awareness and communicating has improved thanks to technology. Informing us about what is
happening around us, permeating people’s lives by their own opinions or criteria, this is what mass
media is. Of course, it is a good thing to have mass media because without it we will not be aware
of anything; however, everything has a price, so there will also be bad things about mass media. I
have known all of this because I experienced it myself and I could definitely say that there are two
sides to the same coin about mass media.

One thing is for sure, mass media affected all aspects of my life, especially my decisions
and choices in life. For instance, when I was in junior high school, I didn’t care about my looks at
all. I don’t have any “style” that they were saying. I just go for the things that I have and go on
with my life. but when I heard on TV that style is an important thing when it comes to presentability
to others. I immediately became conscious of what I wear and tried to improve my style on every
occasion. It was a good thing because now I know what clothes can look good on me and what
clothes aren’t, it boosted my confidence. The mass media influenced my decision to do things that
I did not expect to happen to me. I believe that if I did not change my style sooner, I would still
appear messy and careless about my appearance, and I would not make a good impression on
people who tried to get close to me. However, there was one time that I thought mass media would
be able to fix something for me, and that is finding friends. I wanted to have friends whom I could
talk to, but I find it difficult then I observed that when you know all the trends in TV’s, newspapers,
internet, they will become interested in you and will start befriending you. So, I did some research
on what are the trends that was going on at that time and when that happened my whole belief
system started to change as well as my perceptions in things and I started to lose myself of who I
am and what I truly believe in. The mass media made me believe in things that were either right
or wrong, which was my fault because of the trends that I kept on learning, which had soon become
my belief but this time the mass media also helped me to lead me in the right direction I have found
information on what I should with the things that I am hearing and seeing from mass media.
 I felt happy and contented that mass media is there to provide awareness and information
to me because it contributed a lot as I am growing up. Sometimes I feel anxious or frightened for
the reason that the information I have from the mass media might be wrong, but now I feel that I
can control what I believe and I should not consider. I think that if I did not allow myself to be
open to all ideas like what is happening in all types of mass media, I think I would still be sticking
with the beliefs that I have been holding on to for so many years that could be wrong. The important
thing that mass media has taught me is to always verify and think a thousand times if the
information, criteria, or opinion is right or wrong, to avoid believing in something that could
possibly lead you to a stray path.