The mass media exerts a greater influence over teenagers today than their parents. Do you agree?

Comparing the amount of time most teenagers spend with their family, and the amount of time they spend on entertainment with their friends, I believe few would disagree that parents have increasing lost control over the moral values and mindsets of their children. More often than not, the mass media forms a great part of the entertainment enjoyed by teenagers, e.g. internet, movies and television programmes. Thus, the larger amount of time teenagers spend with the mass media than with their parents makes me come to the point that the former does exerts a greater influence on teenagers today than their parents.
http://www.bc.edu/sites/genpulse/issues/media.html

Mass media is thought to be the ‘hip’ thing and many will not hesitate to follow the trends set by celebrities, depicted through TV variety shows and so on The inculcate of Western values e.g. human rights has become the cause of many disputes within a family, and evidence can be shown by the numerous cases of rebellious teenagers leaving home. Other than that, in many countries, tobacco companies have realized the great impact celebrities have on their audiences, and thus make use of their influencing power to attract more potential customers. This is very effective in changing the mindset of teenagers, despite the incalculable attempts by their parents asking them not to smoke.
http://www.tvparty.com/vaultcomcig.html

Teenagers tend to find their parents naggy, especially when they keep harping on what they should or should not do. This is especially true when they continuously mention about traditional values that people should follow, and teenagers find them nothing but country pumpkins who know nothing. In that case, teenagers have a very low possibility of listening and applying what their parents have taught them. Conversely, “values” taught to them through interesting means like movies tend to leave a great impact on the minds of teenagers and they tend to apply them in their daily lives.
http://www.media-awareness.ca/english/parents/television/tv_impact_kids.cfm

However, strict parents have direct control over their children, which enables them to instill discipline in them, and not to follow mindless trends blindly. They can do so, perhaps by restricting them to the amount of media they are exposed to, e.g. no violent movies. Severe control would mean punishment if they go against the rules set by their parents. But then, this would again make teenagers today rebel even more as they hate to be restricted, and are already used to the notion of freedom. Thus, parents seem to have little control or influence on their children compared to the media.

In conclusion, I agree to a large extent that the media exerts a greater influence on most teenagers today than their parents. Thus, it would be of utmost importance that the media is imparting the correct moral values to the current generations who would be the pillars of our society in the days to come.