A role model is one who has the ability to influence lives, values and lifestyles. It is true that social norms keep changing with the times and, currently, we live in a world where media rules the roost and plays a large role in setting trends in society. Parents and teachers find it increasingly difficult to impart the right principles of human behavior to the young as the media almost always pulls them in a different tangent.

Children often follow 'popular' role models in how they behave and how they react to a situation. This reflects in what they eat, what they watch, where they go out and whom they go out with. The influence of television, Internet and now cell phones is changing our societal interpersonal communication methods.

With information becoming more personalized and social networking taking new dimensions, it is difficult for teachers and parents to know how these changes are likely to influence the psychological balance and emotional maturity of the young ones. Parents find themselves in constant emotional turmoil trying to monitor their wards' behavior.

To make matters worse there also seems to be an erosion of sorts in the moral values of our current generation, thanks to the popular television soap operas.

Not surprisingly these rapid changes are resulting in many families becoming dysfunctional. To understand our young, we need to take a closer look at who is influencing their lives and behavior. Nevertheless, the young people ought to be credited with some intelligence in distinguishing right from wrong.

Celebrity Models

The Ugly: Celebrities make unsatisfactory role models for a variety of reasons. Their celebrity status keeps them in the popular news and what they do or do not impacts young impressionable minds. Public figures who display brash behavior and talk and act as if they lived only to please themselves have an obnoxious influence on the young. Shah Rukh Khan's smoking habits, John and Bipasha's much flaunted live-in relationship, flamboyant lifestyles—be it Michael Jackson, Britney Spears or Paris Hilton, to name a few, are played up by the media, without the least thought about how it will influence some young minds, in making the right choices in life.

The Bad: Leading brands exploit the larger-than-life images of movie stars to promote their wares. Sports persons, super models and pop stars shown snacking on chips and promoting fizzy drinks send confusing signals to the young who are constantly advised by their elders to develop healthy foods habits.

The Good: If there are hundred bad influences once in a way there are also instances such as those of George Clooney raising the Darfur issue to world attention and Imran Khan rallying public support to build a much-needed cancer hospital in Pakistan or Aishwarya Rai propagating the 'Eye donation'.

Indian film celebrities like Amitabh Bachchan, Kamalhasan and many others have helped spread awareness on HIV/AIDS, have supported health campaigns for eye donations and polio and TB eradication movements.

It remains to be seen if action groups and governmental bodies use celebrity endorsement to effectively combat poverty and hunger, achieve universal elementary education, promote gender equality and empower women, reduce child mortality, improve maternal health and other such significant areas that cry for attention.