I think the portrayal of teens in the media is fairly accurate at times, but can be pretty ridiculous at other times.

For the most part, the reason for all the innacuracys are there on purpose to make the show more interesting and entertaining. Because if a show was just about a group of kids who lived there lives regularly and just going to school etc, no one would really want to watch it.

So of course they are going to add in factors in there to make it better to watch, its not lik TV shows and movies are supposed to be accurate depictions of teenage life.


Ultimatly, the accuracy depends on what TV show or movie your watching. For example, in "That 70's Show", 95% of the time it depicts them not at school, and they also hardly ever mention it, even though they are high school students. Most of the time they are somewhere else, to make it more interesting. However the average high school kids life revolves quite a bit around their school/grades etc, but school is hardly ever interesting.

Where as a show like "Freaks and Geeks" has them at school more often than not, although the plot of the show is supposed to revolve around them at their school, but for the most part that makes it slightly more accurate.

So in the end, it depends on what show your watching.