Food for Thought

When I was 14 years old, a friend sent me a copy of “Dolly”, an Australian magazine for girls. It was the first magazine of that kind that I owned, and I read it from cover to cover. Everything about it was interesting and exciting for me. The combination of bright colors, the fun, youthful language, and the sections the magazine was divided into. I wanted to find out about the people on the cover, to see all the films, read all the books and listen to all the albums mentioned inside. “Dolly” also provided a lot of food for thought. The readers’ letters and the problem pages introduced serious subjects: relationships with parents, peers, siblings, school problems, achieving good grades, realizing your goals in life, jobs, and staying safe.
That first feeling stuck. A teen magazine should inform, entertain and stimulate the mind. Another important point: it should also make the reader feel good. Who wants to keep reading something that makes you feel depressed?
Teenage years are the ones when many things associated with growing up happen to you for the first time. And you still have so much to look forward to. You experiment to find out just what you can do on your own. Consequently, you resist any authority (=parents). We’ve all done it! That’s life. But you still need some kind of guidance, though you don’t want to show it.
For girls, teen magazines may become sort of “parent substitutes” for a while. They print information that is useful and interesting for young people. At the same time, magazines offer a lot of advice. The reader can write an anonymous letter if she has a problem, to people who have never seen her before. Nobody knows who you are, therefore you have privacy if you want it. Even if your letter isn’t printed, there’s a good chance something about your problem may already have been written.
A good magazine is careful to print age-appropriate information and advice. A lot of responsible work is required from the editorial team to make a teen magazine trustworthy.
When a magazine is able to provide food for thought, it’s a sign that the editors respect and value their readers.