In this article: “Children as Consumers” (from Global Issues, 2010) by Anup Shah, the author clearly makes it known how harmful advertising and marketing is on children. I focused on three points from this informative article.
First of all, there’s the effect of T.V. . The author points out and stresses how television in general is bad for children under two years of age because “…. brain development depends heavily on real human interaction.” (pg. #4).
The second point is the effect of food ads. The author discusses how over the long term, food marketing is extremely harmful and will affect a good amount of children. Not only does exposure to food ads have serious consequences on children’s health but also on their well-being.
The issue of good parenting skills verses marketing experts is also an important point of this article. Even if some children are not affected by ads because their parents have taught them good values “…. At the same time, parents are contending with many commercial entities which all have professional psychologists, sales and marketing experts as well as corporate lawyers and lobbyists to help continue such trends.” (pg. # 12).
This article seems relevant to this sociology class because of the movie we saw about children being part of consumerism. There are so many hidden facts about why ads are detrimental to children which I learned from this movie and this article. I believe everybody should be aware of these facts and truths because ads and mass marketing are part of our culture and because the way children’s minds develop should be taken seriously.
In our culture, material things and distorted values are placed on a pedestal. Ads and mass marketing does change the way young people think and probably the way they interact. There is definitly a connection between what is seen in commercials and how it is digested (and taken in by the mind). It seems there is a strong correlation between the affects ads have on children and how they process this information. So far, from the two sources I have seen (the movie and this article), the effects ads have on young people are overwhelmingly negative.
