How The Media Affects Youth: Oda Faremo Lindholm (Transcript)

Full text and summary of Norwegian journalist Oda Faremo Lindholm’s talk: How the media affects youth at TEDxOslo conference. In this talk, she points to how continued, and growing use of sexualization and prejudice gender roles in media affects a generation of youth that’s consuming record high levels of media, from a record low age.

Listen to the MP3 Audio here:

TRANSCRIPT:

Oda Faremo Lindholm – Norwegian journalist

Hi. As a kid I grew up with a mom who was Minister of Justice and therefore our little family was early introduced to all things new: cell phones, and cars, and briefcases, computers, the internet.

Growing up, I became more and more interested in how media, pop culture and internet affected each other and how these elements intertwine.

And, among other things, it definitely led to the fact that my generation and especially kids growing up today are growing up in what has become an overtly extreme media culture.

Norwegian kids and teens are taking in massive amounts of media every day. This is linked to the fact that we are both a very rich and a very liberal country. Kids get smartphones and laptops while they are still in primary school and they also get a lot of control over these technical devices and, as a result, kids get hooked on media pretty fast.

In a large survey, Norwegian teens were asked how much time they spend on the internet every day and they estimated a bit over three and a half hours. If you add the time they spend watching TV and movies, reading magazines and newspapers, and listening to music, you get an almost constant stream of media consumption which I am not the only one believing has a huge and most importantly negative effect on the way they see themselves and our perceptions of reality.