Effects of Mass Media on Youth’s Health. Statistics Project

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December 18, 2018
Effects of Mass Media on Youth’s Health
In the past few decades, the world has experienced an unprecedented rise in the consumption of social media. A trend that had been caused by an increase in the affordability and accessibility of digital media devices to the public. As according to the 2018 Nielsen Total Audience Report, a typical American adult spends about “11 hours per day listening to, watching, reading, or generally interacting with media” CITATION The18 \l 1033 (The Nielsen Company). This is significantly higher as compared to previous data gathered over the past few years. In line with this, several studies aiming to analyze the effects of excessive media consumption has found out that a correlation between its use and certain illnesses (physical and psychological) exist. To add to this knowledge, this study is dedicated towards the analysis of negative (risks) behaviors of the youth and digital media usage. This would be done through the analysis of data provided by the US-CDC about the youth’s risk behaviors. The data that would be used are based on the annual report in 2016, which encompasses multiple risks behaviors among the said population. In the succeeding section of this article, both statistical data and visual representations would be provided in order to show a possible relationship between the youth’s risk behaviors and health status (e.g., obesity and overweightness). All in all, the author believes that an inverse relationship exists between the youth’s amount of digital media consumption and their health and well-being.
The State of Health and Well-being
Maintaining good health and well-being encompasses a lot of factors to consider. On the one hand, this includes the physiological and physical vitality of an individual. Measurements such as Body Mass Index (BMI), cardiorespiratory endurance, and flexibility are just some of tools and techniques that are used to determine physical fitness CITATION Hagnd \l 1033 (Hagen). On the other hand, well-being also includes a person’s ability to have a sound mind, controlled emotions, and the ability to socialized well with others. Together, these are the components that ensures that an individual is indeed ‘healthy’.
In line with this definition of fitness, one could see that the health status of the youth in the United States has been experiencing some setbacks. In terms of obesity and overweightness, the table presented below (Table 1) shows that the means of both overweight and obese are more than 10% of the overall population for all the regions of the United States. Thi...