There is much talk today about the negative, destructive messages that target youth. A recent study revealed that one out of every three rap songs references drug and alcohol use. The study did not say, but I wonder if the other two songs are about sex.

These messages abound through media such as music, ads, magazines, billboards and the Internet. Suggestions that drug use and sex are activities youth can and should participate in are ubiquitous—presented as sure-fire ways for youth to answer those questions that haunt their changing minds throughout adolescence: Who am I? What is life about? How should I relate to other people and the world we live in?

As adults our burning question ought to be: How can we best help teens sort through these messages and not fall victim to lies? Unfortunately, a common response is to simply be dismissive of the media. Many of us are inclined to deride it for its perverse presentation of reality; its seductive antics, propaganda and lies. “That’s ridiculous!” we may say in response to a music video that has captured the interest of a teen in our life. My concern is that such derision makes the object of our wrath forbidden fruit. That which we adults label ridiculous or stupid becomes enticing to youth precisely because we disparage it.

Perhaps I’m being too generous in thinking the majority of adults are attuned to the reality that the media are feeding feverishly on our youth. I suspect many adults, paralyzed by what they recognize on some level as an inevitable swell of propaganda beneath their feet, acquiesce to the surge of the media’s force. Such folks are inclined to underestimate not only the power of the media and its role in shaping young minds, but also the calculated, premeditated nature of these manipulations.

I want to offer a more helpful option to either dismissing the media as ridiculous, or denying its power. To begin I’d like to introduce the concept of “live ideas.” Live ideas exist within us as viable possibilities for how things really are. Since these ideas are alive and active, they help inform what we believe and do.

Imagine a teen coming to a crossroads at which he will need to make a decision. How does he go about doing this? What factors influence the decision he will make, and how might the media influence his decision? The media will guide a teen’s decision-making process insomuch as the media can introduce and sustain live ideas in teens. A music video, for example, may deliver the not-so-subtle message that if I have sex often and with many different women, I bolster my manhood and become a more substantive person. If I’m a teen I may believe sex will improve my social standing. Imagine these beliefs entering, living, growing, and thriving within the mind of a teen, like their own little Oz hiding behind the curtain calling the shots. The idea is now alive and will influence that teen’s decisions, worldview and self-perception.

Teens absorb dozens, even hundreds of these ideas. Live ideas produce live options. If a teen crafts his identity as a jock, the options put forth to him through the media may include: be arrogant, dismissive, cruel, and humiliating. He may not experience as a live option ballet, opera, chess, or volunteering at his local convalescent home. These are dead options because he has no live ideas that might furnish these options. Ideas are the seed. Options are the plant with all its branches.

So long as unhealthy, deceptive live ideas remain hidden they will grow. When we dismiss or deride the ideas they grow even more. To kill these ideas and cultivate true ideas that bear good fruit we need to bring the false ideas into the open. Live, lying ideas fully exposed will die. What happens when these ideas die? Teens enter the marketplace for new, better ideas to replace the old.

Crisis and conflict are central to this process. Where there is no crisis there is no conflict and no change. I believe our task is to bring teens into relationship with live ideas that are eating their soul. This creates the kind of conflict we’re looking for. If the teen is willing to let the idea die, and work through the ensuing crisis, a new idea will inevitably ripen and give true sustenance.

Tags: dynamic process, media influence, youth development