Brown & Knowles present an interesting quote in Ch. 3 highlighting the extreme influences of media in young adolescent lives as it is stated:

Technology increases every new generation of adolescents’ exposure to the world in positive and negative ways. Young adolescents have immediate and constant access to the world through the Internet, iPods, and the latest generation of cell phones. Understanding the constant bombardment of visual and auditory images is challenging for young adolescents. Yet what they experience shapes their views of the world and their perceived place in it (Brown & Knowles 47).

This quote extremely relevant to a conversation I had earlier in the week with my sister regarding my 14-year-old cousin who just started high school. We recently found out that my cousin is hanging out with “the wrong crowd” at school and we were wondering whether or not she could be drinking alcohol at a young age due to peer pressure. Not only does peer pressure exist in school, but I believe these pressures are even magnified through use of technology, and specifically in this case through the use of the social media platform Instagram.
On Instagram there are many public accounts such as “betches”, “girl with no job”, or “my therapist says” which contain content that is available to any public audience. Sometimes these accounts contain photos or jokes centered on the themes of being drunk, hung over, lazy, unemployed, or in general negative attitudes towards other people or life. To some audiences, such as viewers in their 20s, although these images may be sometimes relatable and funny, for the most part I believe that this older audience knows that these images are jokes and carry a sarcastic connotation. In a way, these themes are glorifying a 20-something year old through a negative perspective. From a 14-year-old girl’s perspective, she may see these images centered on being drunk or hung over and think that this is how she is supposed to behave or act. 14-year-old girls look up to older girls and when they view this activity, they may want to mimic this behavior. Younger audiences will see these images and may not be able to identify the sarcastic/ jokingly connotation, but instead, they may think this is what they need to do to be considered “normal” “cool” or to simply follow what everyone else is doing. Because young adolescents can be exposed to so much content either through Instagram or the internet in general, I believe parents and teachers need to play in active role in young adolescents life in order to review these themes through conversation understand young perceptions of these themes.