Consuming Kids
Consuming Kids The video documentary “Consuming Kids” highlights the impact of media and advertising on the health and well-being of children. Advertising has critically changed comparing from the past to today, as it penetrates children more than adults. Companies have decided to deliver their advertisements to children due to their vulnerable minds. The techniques companies use to attach a child with their advertisement is by using equipped with their product. This influences a child to grasp that product and evidently the same child becomes a consistent consumer in the marketing world.
Not only is advertisement publicized on TV but, also on the internet and cellular mobile devices, making it harder for a parent to neglect its unwanted presence. Science is involved in this documentary as scientists use the “blinking experiment” to analyze the child’s attention rate. Scientist have mentioned that advertisers use round figures throughout their commercial, as it has been found that children are attracted to this shape; making it harder for them to neglect the purpose of the advertisement. This is only a small contribution of how advertising has used symbolism to support its function.
Using symbolism within an advertisement is very clever because it not only portrays the significance of the product but, portrays the “positive” lifestyle given when the product is purchased. Age compression plays a huge role in the marketing scheme, as it provokes young kids to feel older, making the product more suitable for the younger consumers. Advertisements affect a children’s mind negatively, as it can impact their vocabulary, cause them to lose their concentration p and eventually diagnose them with ADHD.
In this documentary I was able to recognize and understand each and every perspective of how advertisements are abusing children. The media claims that parents are ultimately responsible for what their children watch, wear, and eat. I believe this is not true, because realistically a parent is unable to guard their child from advertisements every minute of the day. There is a likely chance that advertisement can be viewed at public locations like schools or daycares, making it harder to repel your child from advertisements. From this point, only the government has the ability to control such advertisements.
As a society we should embrace the conflict raised from the media and publicize the negative effects of a child watching advertisements. We should ban the usage of advertisements used in schools and daycares so, children are not affected by them. A letter concerning the vital information about the documentary should be sent out to every family, so parents are aware of this cause. What shocked me the most, was the disturbing picture of the little girl who claims she’s trying to be sexy. This picture portrayed a young female child with her back pointing to the camera without a shirt.
As soon as I recognized that, my point of view on advertisements harming children has changed enormously. There should be no reason for children to dress inappropriately in modern society. Yes, I feel like I have been affected by advertisements throughout my childhood. From a very young age of 6, I was behaving like the young boys shown in the documentary. Similar to them, I would also commit to violence and aggressive materials, such as movies and video games. At the time, it felt normal but now recognizing the effect of advertisement I am able to comprehend that I was under the influence of media.
