Category Archives: Assignment 3

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.

This article of NYTimes.com talks about many parents in U.S. like to spend significant sums on building playhouses for their children in nowadays troubled economy.  In fact, the playhouse makers report that they are as busy as ever and the playhouses they have built become larger in sizes and more expensive in costs.  Many parents who buy playhouses state that the goal of having playhouse is to inspire their children to play outside and promote their creativity.  According to those parents, the fun the children have in the playhouse is priceless.  However, child psychologists think that parents do not have to spend much money to encourage the kind of unstructured imaginative play.  On the other hand, the playhouses are often custom-built based on parents’ specifications.  For example, John Schiller and his wife spend $50,000 to build a customized playhouse which has the same Cape Cod style as the Schiller’s expansive main house for their 4 year-old daughter, Sinclair in Texas.  Interestingly, the playhouse builders think that the playhouse is not only a place for children to play, but also a decorative expansion of their parents’ houses.  Actually, a psychology professor at City University of NY, Steven Tuber thinks that those playhouses may meet the parent’s sense of impressiveness, but they are not relevant to the child’s need and desires for a play space.

I think this article is relevant because we discuss how the childrearing exports tell parents about creating an ideal playroom for their children in order to revitalize their home in our class.  Progressives think that the playroom benefits both the children and their parents.  It is a space that satisfies children’s developmental needs for self-directed play and also frees mothers from frequent disorder.  Furthermore, playroom authorities urge parents to furnish the playroom to suit children’s tastes.  Many designers think that decorating playrooms is the opposition of the room’s purpose.  They believe that an empty, unfurnished room will guide children in the direction of using their imagination.