The discrimination of adolescents has increased over the years. Adults and media of modern day society discriminate all adolescents’ behavior based on a small minority of teens. This is due to the behavior of adolescents, the media’s perception of teens, and as a result, the only way to end this madness is a compromise. First of all, the behavior of adolescents is a main cause of discrimination. Adolescents want attention from society by acting inappropriately and claiming it as individualism.
The new generation of adolescent’s acts fervently mainly because they have too much freedom; there is no one to discipline them. In the past, when adolescents did poorly or behaved inappropriately in school, they were often punished in the form of physical abuse. Youths were disciplined back then but nowadays there are no consequences for their faults, so they abuse their rights on a regular basis. Additionally, youths are jealous of adults. Adults possess privileges which youths do not such as smoking, watching X-rated movies, and drinking.
This factor forces youths to act older than they really are so they can receive the name privileges but youths fail to realize that they are not adults. So by smoking, watching X-rated movies, and drinking, adolescents have earned a bad reputation. However it is a small minority of youths that act this way, and they are ruining the reputation of adolescents as a whole. These individuals are the rotten apple spoiling the barrel. In another case, adolescents are discriminated because of the way youths are portrayed by the media. First of all, the media mainly focuses on negativity.
There are rarely any reports on positive events. In movies, teens are hooligans and thieves. In the movie True Lies the protagonists’ daughter stole money and had a punk boyfriend on a motorcycle. The media is also famous for producing bad role models such as Mine. All adolescents have role models to look up to. The message Mine sends out through his music encourages teens to act disgraceful. Again, it is the small minority of teens who look up to bad role models and act inappropriately that ruins the reputation of adolescents as a whole.
The only solution to the growing discrimination is a compromise between adolescents, adults, and the media. The minority of adolescents needs to change their behavior. They have to realize that they are ruining the reputation Of all adolescents and have to take responsibilities for their actions. Secondly, the perspective of adults towards teens has to change. They have to recognize that not all adolescents are hooligans but it is a minority of teens acting inappropriately. The media would also need to change. Adults watch TV and believe whatever they see, so when teens are portrayed as punks they become punks.
If the media changed their perspective of adolescents, then society would change. If all three sides can change, the discrimination would be dramatically reduced. In order for the discrimination to come to an end, the perspective of the media and adult should change to give adolescents the benefit of the doubt and judge them with individualism. Furthermore, adolescents also need to change their behavior and take responsibilities for their actions to prove to adults and the media that adolescents are not troublemakers and that looks may be deceiving.
