SAT Practice Essay

I definitely need some help with SAT writing. Here's the practice essay I tried to write in 25 minutes:

Currently, people in society today have found ourselves in the middle of a world of the media. This has become such a huge deal that nowadays, people live their lives according to, based on, and by all the different types of media available to us. This abundance of media includes magazines, television, the internet, and many other things. I do believe that these types of media are determining what's important to people in today's society and essentially running our lives. Examples of issues we are influenced by are drugs/alcohol, violence, and self esteem.

First, the issue of drugs and alcohol is probably the most important one in the lives of our younger generations today. There is a growing amount of crimes, deaths, and other things happening today resulting from the use of the wide varieties of drugs and alcohol. I'm not saying that all of this is rooted from one place, but I believe the media has a huge influence on the people in today's society regarding this issue. People today see other people such as celebrities that they admire and look up to, doing drugs and alcohol, which could possibly result dangerously in their lives. For example, the other day I was on myspace.com looking at all the different musical artists' Myspaces, when I came upon the "space" of Snoop Dogg. Lo and behold, the first thing that catches my eye is a huge background picture of him in what appears to be a music recording studio, surrounded by clouds of smoke, originating from his mouth. What is this picture saying to people? That to become successful, you need to "take a hit" once in a while? To me it's rediculous the things being portrayed to the public today, especially regarding drugs.

Another example of the media's influence on the people today is


... and that's where I ended when time was up. I think I really need to start working on SAT writing more, especially since we're taking the real thing less than a year from now. So to the people who write quality SAT essays in 25 minutes, how do you do it? For me, I just can't think of quality examples on the spot. I need some advice.