How does easy access to social media and popular culture effect women's self-esteem and attitude? Easy access to social media and popular culture are major leading factors to young girls developing negative body images. It is also a major factor in women of all age groups developing native social skills. 

In recent years the growth of technology has allowed everyone to easily access the internet. Also with this growth, social media and popular culture have flourished in this new technology age. Since this boom in technology kids are accessing the internet at younger and younger ages. A recent study has shown that young girls as young as the age of five have started to developed self-esteem issues because of the images that are displayed throughout the internet. These negative body images, that can be easily accessed from the internet, are producing negative effects on young girl's development. 

Women and girls can be broken down into age groups. Each age group has both negative and positive influences. The Disney Channel reaches the youngest age group, young girls between the age of five through ten. The Disney Channel does not display positive images for young girls. Young girls start to develop an idea that all women need to be a size one or two. Every young girl has an idea of being a Disney Princess or Disney character and none of their princesses drawn as a plus size character. Also Disney main female characters are not plus size. From an early age young girls start to develop an idea of what they should be and who they are. 

The next age group is eleven to sixteen year olds. This is a key age for the development for teen girl's. They have to face the dangers of high school and almost all are teen girls are involved in at least one type of social media. The role model that is most noticeable associated with this age group is Taylor Swift. Taylor Swift and her crew are looked upon as the leaders of this age group. However, they Swift does not have much diversity within her main group of friends. She also does not display positive social skills. Swift blatantly started a Twitter fight with Nicki Mainaj. If Swift was a true leader she would have approached the situation differently. Teen girls see this attitude and image and believe that it is acceptable to act in negative social order and believe that all teens should be look as Swift does. 

The last major age group is women of the age of seventeen to twenty-two. This age is a major transitioning age for women. The Kardashian woman are highly associated with this age group. The Kardashian sisters portray native images of what it is like to be a woman. They are concerned with their physical appearance in terms of makeup and clothing size. They are also constantly getting into feuds with other celebrities over social media.  These so called role models do not display positive body images and do not display positive social skills. Women are constantly bombarded with these negative images and then it is assumed that this is how women should act.   

Through the easy access of social media and popular culture all ages of women have developed negative body images and negative social skills, all age groups of women have both positive and negative role models. 

`My personal interest for this topic stems from personal experiences with viewing negative body images and negative socials skills on social media. I want to understand how young girls can develop such major self-esteem issues at such a young age. I also wat to understand how teen girls develop such negative social skills. It seems that most teens are concerned about tiring another girl down to raise their social status. I am hoping that the research that I do could possible help young girls understand that what they see is not reality and they should focus on being the best they can be. That is the hope for my paper.

I am a young woman who has lived in every age group. I have taken notice at how I have developed and I know that social media plays such a negative world to a young women self-esteem and if it hadn't had been for positive tangible role models in my life I would have continued to look negatively on myself. Also I have severed a mentor to young girls and I have experienced how easy it can be to change a young girl's outlook on themselves 

Elizabeth Heubeck wrote the article "Helping Girls with Body Image" for WebMD. The article discusses the power of media and technology. It also discusses some options for improving young girl's self-esteem. The article notes that parents need to have an open dialog with their young girls about images in media. It also notes that sports is a good outlet as long as the sport focuses on the game and not the appearance of women.  This article promotes many of the idea for positive change among this issue. The author writes with the intention of helping young girls. The author has writing many article for WebMD and for other major publications. The author does not seem to promote bias on either side of the argument. Within her writing she displays the positives of a change and also the negatives to a solution. This article proves many issues within the thesis and provides many solutions on how to help promote positive change. 

In an article titled "Sports: A Powerful Strategy to Advance Women's Rights" written by Astrid Aarjes, written for the Fletcher Forum of World Affairs, Aarjes discusses the importance of sport on the development for young girls. Aarjes' main points are about discussing the importance it is for young girls to understand they have the write to play sports. It also discusses the importance of the development of young girls self-esteem once in a sports program. This article shows the positive effects that can happen to young girl once she has become involved with a sports program. This article promotes major changes to current systems to help the development of young girls. This author founded a program called Women Win. She is also the executive director of the program. Her career has been focused on the gender and human rights sector. She has worked with the United Nations on Violence Against Women and Human Rights issues. Aarjes' has spent her career helping others. 

In an article, titled "Female Body Image and the Mass Media: Perspectives on How Women Internalize the Ideal Beauty Standard" written for Westminster College Kasey L. Serdar defines the Female Body image and then defines the standards seen in the media. Serdar describes the "ultra-thin" idea seen in media, and how young girls see it as the standard for beauty these days. This article also lists two theories to explain why this happens, the Social Comparison theory and Cultivation theory. Kasey Serdar is a licensed Psychologist and Ph.D. She has done research in body image issues, depression and psychotherapy. She has also done research with eating disorders. Serdar is currently in privet practice at Chase Brexton Health Care. Her education and work prove that she has the knowledge for this subject. 

This is a completely arguable, the other side of this argument is that social media and popular culture are accurate images for young girls and they do not produce self-esteem issues. Some of the disagreements may be that Serdar's theories hold no validity. Another disagreement might be that one cannot apply sports based programs to every situation. Some young girls might not another type of program that build on positive images. If I were to revise my research question and thesis statement, I would want to include both theories listed in Serdar's article and included the question of "Do sports based programs truly help develop positive images?". These are just some of the challenges and opportunities I could take to this paper.  

In conclusion, easy access to social media and popular culture do cause young girls to develop both self-esteem issues and social issues.  This topic is very important because as a woman who has grown up in each age group I know how important it is to have an important role model. All source found so far for this argument discusses the negatives of media and some discuss some solutions. The topic itself is completely arguable and the source have little to no controversy. Many young girls need positive role models and anyone can be that role model for a young girl.

