Recently, the admiration for media and sports stars has been rising in the young demographics although they may not set a good example for them. From my perspective, I believe this development is fundamentally negative, which will be elaborated upon in the following paragraphs.
What makes this phenomenon bring about drawbacks rather than true positive development is its underlying mechanism. Social media is an environment which is completely distinct from real life, and when the influence of the media and sports stars is too powerful, a new moral standard system can be easily formed, which does not always suit the real situations. However, the most dangerous thing is, a majority of the young population often appears with their cognitive vulnerability and their lack of pragmatic experience. Combining the two factors together results in implicit degradation of their own critical thinking and self-government. They lose their ability to analyze and assess problems independently, and when their reliance on social media becomes uncontrollable, explicit toxic effects start to spread.
The paid cost for idolizing media figures remains negative regardless of whether the idols are morally upright as a result of autonomy loss. Young people may become susceptible to media manipulation, letting their choices and their worldviews be dictated by numerous sophisticated algorithms. One of the harmful effects is that investing money, time and health in some aspects yields a zero return if young people cannot distinguish between commercial agendas and substantive knowledge. For instance, self-healing is helpful when it encourages people to prioritize their holistic well-being; however, some idols are taking advantage of their power as well as this term to sell their books which may possibly harbor a latent risk of containing false knowledge.
In conclusion, media figure idolization causes detrimental ramifications due to its hidden mechanism to degrade self-government of young people. Consequently, they become vulnerable, potential targets for the media to manipulate and exploit them in terms of finance, health and time.