A new study suggests that the amount of TV children watch has a direct effect on their self-esteem. For white boys, increased television watching led to greater self-esteem. However, for girls and all other races, more TV made self-esteem worse. From MedicalXPress.com:
"Regardless of what show you're watching, if you're a white male, things in life are pretty good for you," Martins said of characters on TV. "You tend to be in positions of power, you have prestigious occupations, high education, glamorous houses, a beautiful wife, with very little portrayals of how hard you worked to get there.
"If you are a girl or a woman, what you see is that women on television are not given a variety of roles," she added.
"Young black boys are getting the opposite message: that there is not lots of good things that you can aspire to," Martins said. "If we think about those kinds of messages, that's what's responsible for the impact.”
Whenever they do a study comparing demographics, white males almost always come out toward the front of the pack. Maybe the world is an unfair place, or maybe we’re just the best. I don’t know. I do know that TV has nothing to do with inequality. Because every single commercial these days shows a white guy either being an idiot or being totally p-whipped. I’m also yet to see a commercial in 2012 where a criminal isn’t portrayed by a white guy. According to commercials, all white guys drink Miller Lite and act like morons while their cool group of multi-ethnic friends looks on condescendingly. Then, after last call, they drive around in cars filled with cranberry vodka, looking for a house without ADT Home Security that they can rob. And at some point, they do a really lame dance. If us white guys have inflated self-esteem, it’s not from TV, I can promise you that much.
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