How media influences your child at 9-18 years

Young people can be smart consumers of media messages. They don’t just take in everything they see and hear online or in other media. But they might still need help to develop the skills they need to handle media influence.

Media influence on young people can be deliberate and direct. For example, advertising is often directed at children of all ages. This means that kids are increasingly conscious of brands and images.

Media influence can also be indirect. For example, this might include sexualised images and content on Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok, YouTube and Twitch. It might also include violent imagery and coarse language in news media, documentaries, video games and song lyrics. This kind of media influence can suggest to young people that certain ways of behaving and looking are ‘normal’.

Positive media influences

Media messages can have a positive influence on young people’s behaviour and attitudes.

Citizenship

If your child is exposed to and takes an interest in news media, they’re more likely to be interested in major social and political issues like climate change. Media can encourage them to become more involved as citizens in their community or to connect with others on issues they feel strongly about.

Health and lifestyle

Your child can also pick up important health promotion messages from online and other media. This might include messages aimed at preventing youth depression and suicide, promoting positive, respectful relationships, or encouraging healthy eating and lifestyle habits.

Identity

Good-quality stories in TV shows and movies can help your child explore aspects of identity like sexuality, relationships, gender or ethics. Examples include the treatment of sexuality in a TV show like Heartstopper, relationships in the TV show Heartbreak High, gender in the movies Ride Like a Girl and Barbie, or ethics in a TV show like The Good Place. These shows and movies can spark interesting and helpful conversations when you watch them with your child at an appropriate age.

It’s always worth remembering that media – good and bad – is just one of several influences on your child’s behaviour and attitudes. Other influences include family, friends and peers, cultural background and more. Often these influences can be more powerful than media influence.

Negative media influences

Media messages can have a negative or unhealthy influence on young people’s behaviour and attitudes in certain areas, including self-image, body image, health and citizenship.

Self-image and body image

Your child’s self-image and body image can be influenced by online media, other media and advertising. For example, if your child regularly sees staged and filtered images online, they might feel they’re not good enough. Or if your child sees unrealistic ‘thin’ or ‘muscly’ body types often enough, it can affect their body image and eating behaviour. These images can be even more powerful when there’s no-one to disagree with messages like ‘Thin is beautiful’.

Health and lifestyle

Online and other media can influence the decisions that your child makes about their health and lifestyle. For example, media messages and content can make it look ‘normal’, cool or grown up to eat or not eat particular food, to smoke, vape, drink alcohol or take other drugs, to do unrealistic or unproven health regimes, or to gamble.

Citizenship

To be a responsible citizen, your child needs reliable and good-quality information. But online and other media are sometimes used in negative ways during elections and at other times. For example, fake news or deepfakes might influence your child to believe misinformation or disinformation about a politician, public figure or celebrity. Online forums might also promote biased or hateful attitudes.

Experts don’t agree on whether violence in video games leads to aggression or violence in real life. But they do agree that the best way to deal with the issue of violence in video games is by talking with your child about it and sharing your own family values.

Media celebrities and influencers

Celebrities and influencers can be powerful influences.

Young people can be attracted to lifestyles, products or behaviour that celebrities and influencers promote online. This can sometimes be a negative influence – for example, YouTuber Logan Paul’s risky behaviour or Mr Beast’s questionable business practices. But there are many celebrities whose lifestyles, values and behaviour provide positive examples – for example, YouTuber Elise Ecklund.

It’s important for your child to be aware that influencers and some celebrities are paid to advertise the products they endorse.

It can be difficult to tell the difference between influencers and regular people – or even celebrities – posting videos and other content for fun. Influencers are meant to say whether they’ve been paid by using hashtags like #ad or #sponsored or words like ‘ad’ or ‘sponsored’ in their posts. You and your child could look out for these signs.

How to help your child handle media influence

Exposure to media messages is a part of modern life, but you can help your child work out what’s worth paying attention to.

Talk about media messages

The best way to help your child navigate the influence of media is to talk about media messages. For example, if your child likes watching beauty channels on YouTube, you could talk about product advertising and sponsorship. Or if your child is into a computer game like Fortnite, you could talk about the violence and looting that occurs in the game.

Encourage a questioning attitude

When you’re talking about media with your child, you can encourage them to ask questions too. This can help your child sort facts from opinion, identify advertising and fake news, understand bias and be aware of the misuse of statistics.

For example, you could choose a YouTube channel that your child likes and ask:

• Who’s behind it?
• What’s their motivation? How can you tell?
• What do they want from you?
• How does it make you feel?
• Do they want you to feel that way? Why?

You can do the same for celebrities and influencers. Encourage your child to ask:

• Why do I like these people?
• Are they presented in a realistic way?
• Are they like this in real life?
• What values does this person portray?
• How does this person make me feel about myself?
• Why is this person telling me about this product or activity?
• Are there signs that this person is an influencer?

During an election campaign, you and your child could look at political news and memes together. Ask:

• What ideas are being promoted in this news story or meme?
• Who wrote this story or made this meme and why?
• How might this meme influence voters during the election?
• What do ABC News Verify and AAP FactCheck say about this information?

Talk about advertising

You can help to limit the influence of advertising on your child by talking about how advertising sells ideas as well as products. Ask:

• Does this advertisement link the product with a particular kind of lifestyle?
• How does that make you feel about the product?
• What messages does this advertisement send about what people should look like, wear, do, eat and drink?

Think about online forums or group chats

If your child spends a lot of time on online forums or online group chats like Reddit or Discord, it’s good to get your child thinking about questions like these:

• What do people talk about on the forum?
• What are the forum’s attitudes towards race, ethnicity, gender and sexuality? Are any of these attitudes biased or even hateful?
• Does the forum make you feel safe and happy or uncomfortable?
• Does it align with your own values and beliefs?

Young people sometimes need help to get out of negative forums and chats and find ones that match their values. For example, if a negative forum is built into a game, you could suggest that your child takes a break from the game while you help them find a different game to play.

Talk about algorithms

It’s a good idea to talk about how algorithms use your likes, shares and searches to show you more of the same type of content. This can mean you see less diverse content, and it might reinforce harmful or unrealistic attitudes or ideas.

Your child can counter the influence of algorithms by:

• being selective about what they like and share and using tools like ‘not interested’, ‘dislike’ or ‘hide’
• searching for diverse topics, perspectives and opinions
• resetting their app preferences, which clears their past shares, searches and likes.

The Australian Government has passed a law called the Online Safety Amendment (Social Media Minimum Age) Bill 2024. This law says that you must be aged 16 years or older to hold an account on social media platforms like TikTok, Instagram and Snapchat. Read more about the social media ban and how to help your child handle it.

How to help your child balance media use with other activities

When your child balances media use with other activities like physical and creative activities and face-to-face socialising, your child experiences a wide range of influences. These include peers, community mentors and family, as well as the media.

You can also introduce your child to real-life, positive role models. Ways to do this could be joining local community groups, sporting clubs or mentoring programs.

You’re still your child’s most important role model. By being an informed and questioning consumer, you show your child how to handle powerful media influences. Part of this might be ignoring advertisements for the latest and greatest new gadget, or talking with your child about why you follow certain people on Twitter or Instagram.