Role of Advertisement on kids and Youth!!

(Mehjabeen Gull, Lahore)

Media is said to be the fourth pillar of state, and it plays its influential role on its audience. Most of the content is targeted to youth. Yet media has certain responsibilities on its shoulder & it influence us like anything, it has tremendous effects on us or saying “on our minds” will not be wrong…

Kids are said to be the mirror. They do what they see in their routine like in cartoon, movies etc. They are said to be the future of Pakistan. Now a days it is being observed that young generation lacks norms and values and morality. And the reason, somehow, is mass media. The result of a research from the American Psychological Association (APA) shows that children under the age of eight are unable to critically comprehend on-screen advertising messages and are likely to accept advertiser messages as truthful, accurate and unbiased. This can lead to unhealthy eating habits as evidenced by today’s youth obesity epidemic. The market for children’s products and food is enormous. Parents on the one hand have a hard time raising children the way they want to, while on the other hand, kids are being increasingly influenced by commercialism that often goes against what parents are trying to do. With such constant bombardment of images of what beauty, perfection etc. are all supposed to be, it is no wonder that many related health issues are increasing in younger children, from anxiety and stress to eating disorder.

Young people in particular are vulnerable to a lot of influences from all angles. It differs according to its intended audience, so that, for example, advertising aimed at children raises some technical and moral issues significantly different from those raised by advertising aimed at competent adults.

Advertising also has an indirect but powerful impact on society through its influence on media. Many  publications and broadcasting operations depend on advertising revenue for survival. This often is true of religious media as well as commercial media. For their part, advertisers naturally seek to reach audiences; and the media, striving to deliver audiences to advertisers, must shape their content.

Just as the media of social communication themselves have enormous influence everywhere, so advertising, using media as its vehicle, is a pervasive, powerful force shaping attitudes and behavior in today's world.

The field of advertising is extremely broad and diverse. In general terms, of course, an advertisement is simply a public notice meant to convey information and invite benefaction or some other response. As that suggests, advertising has two basic purposes: to inform and to persuade, and — while these purposes are distinguishable — both very often are simultaneously present.

Advertisers are selective about the values and attitudes to be promoted and encouraged, promoting some while ignoring others. Frequently it deliberately appeals to such motives as envy, status seeking and lust.

At a time of widespread and unfortunate confusion about moral norms, the communications media have made violence accessible to a vastly expanded audience, including young people and even children, and a problem which at one time was confined mainly to wealthy countries has now begun, via the communications media, to corrupt moral values in developing nations.

In cases of the second sort, advertising sometimes is used to promote products and inculcate attitudes and forms of behavior contrary to moral norms

People are getting materialistic day by day. They are losing norms n values and their culture and traditions.

Advertising is a massive, that's having an enormous impact on youngster development, "The sheer volume of advertising is growing rapidly and invading new areas of childhood, like our schools." the result is not only an epidemic of materialistic values among children, but also something is called "narcissistic wounding" of children. The commercial world has an increasing impact on children and it is time that both businesses and governments take this seriously.

Mehjabeen Gull
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