Advertisement and its influence on Children

It is hardly imaginable to be a parent and have no concerns about the influences that environment has over youngster. In a highly competitive world of highly developed technology, is it difficult to control the information that one can get through the communication channels today. As everybody knows the variety of types of channels increased. In old times we only had “mouth” to send a massage as the source an advertisement, but later on print media continued accomplishment of the job done by “Mouth,” radio, television followed the path of development and took society to the world of Internet as its final stage. The term “Final stage” is used conventionally. Nobody knows what is going to happen with nowadays reality after stating that “Sex and marriage with robots can soon be possible.”

World is full extraordinary events and technical, scientific developments. Nobody could imagine that one day a child could click the remote controller, turn on the PC, play games and even watch inadvertently the advertisements spread over the communication channels.

Though it is said that children in early years have abilities to absorb the amount of information that elderly people can only do in 15 years, the question is how much positive and productive the information is. It is easy to guess that children of all ages are heavy media consumers. According to Kaiser Family Foundation, Kids and Media at the New Millennium a child spends 6 hours a day sitting at the TV (or PC).

High attention and control over the effects of advertisements on the children at the age of 8 and older is caused by children’s inherent vulnerability. One of the most spread effects the advertisements have resulted in children is childhood obesity. It is logical result because in majority cases the advertisements directed to the children at the age of 8 and older are more food oriented.

One of the most successful ways of attracting child’s attention is the use of cartoon or game characters, the heroes they want to be resembled with.

The issue advertisement influence is of great importance and it does not come necessarily from the last years but in 1974, the National Advertising Review Council (NARC) established the Children’s Advertising Review Unit (CARU) as a self-regulatory program. The main purpose of which was to promote responsible children’s advertising.

Controlling the ads placement in the TV is much easier than in the Internet. On the TV the advertisement should be corresponding to the program, whether the advertisement appears after or before the program children watch, is of great importance too. Advertisements’ target audience, in case it is youth, has different features and ads are of different form and content. It should be educative and relevant to the understanding of child. Deceptive and unfair ads draw false image on the product and damage consciousness of a child.

To underline effects of the TV ads we can apply to oboulo.com. There are 4 effects of the TV advertisement that influence children: The appealing effect of advertising, the 'parent-child' conflict, and advertising that creates materialistic values, the impact on children's health.
As for the Internet advertisements, they are harder to control. When 11 years old child teaches you how to make a free web site, the possibility of watching internet ads is high.

Similar to the TV, the Internet has also appealing effects, it also creates materialistic values, and has the impact on child health, but the conflict between child and parents is doubled because parents are not less affected by internet because of its indispensable and ubiquitous nature. Anyway the media that aims to gain profit from audience should try to work on the basis of mutual benefit and be directed to minimization of harm.

This article has originally been posted on MediaPathBlog.com