abhishreshthaa
Abhijeet S
According to an in depth research done on the influence of advertising on children it was found that children between the age of 2 and 11 watch an average of 21.5 hours of TV a week and may see between 22000 and 25,000 commercials a year. And its impact on children can not be overlooked. Television viewing which frequently limits children’s time for vital activities such as playing, reading, learning to talk, spending time with peers and family, storytelling, participating in regular exercise, and developing other necessary physical, mental and social skills, has become the major source of information and entertainment and mostly guides their thinking and living patterns. As far as children are concerned, in a matter of seconds, most of them can mimic a movie or TV character, sing an advertising jingle, or give other examples of what they have learnt from media. These examples may include naming a popular brand lets say from toothpaste to beer or from play fighting to striking a "sexy" pose.
Most of the time the impact is not so immediate or obvious. It occurs slowly as children see and hear advertisements or actions in movies over and over. For instance when time and again they have watched fighting and other violence used as a way to "handle" conflict or they get an image that smoking cigarettes and taking alcohol make the user more cool and attractive, not unhealthy and deadly, immature minds get rather lured to all such habits which we may not want them to develop. Advertisements and movies also send kids a message that smoking and drinking make a person sexy.
They get a message that everybody uses these things and therefore there is no harm if they use either. It would not be an exaggeration to say that advertising in fact, sways teens to smoking and drinking. Teens, who see a lot of ads for beer, wine, liquor, and cigarettes, too admit that it provokes them to drinking and smoking. Alcohol-related problems have proliferated among teens in recent years and have resulted in many negative consequences such as gang rape, thefts, robbery, and murder, indiscipline in school and colleges and use of unfair means and above all untimely deaths and suicides.
To our consternation, media heavily promotes unhealthy and malnutricious food like instant food, junk food and sachet packed food. On the contrary, it strongly advocates the viewers that they need to lose weight and be slim and thin. The glamorous presentation indirectly discourages people from taking up the tasks, which need physical activity.
Advertising is affecting the whole world and India the country that has inherited a rich traditional culture and values, is no exception to it. Now let us trace some of the advertisements, which are appearing on television screen and how are they distressing the children in India.
Most of the time the impact is not so immediate or obvious. It occurs slowly as children see and hear advertisements or actions in movies over and over. For instance when time and again they have watched fighting and other violence used as a way to "handle" conflict or they get an image that smoking cigarettes and taking alcohol make the user more cool and attractive, not unhealthy and deadly, immature minds get rather lured to all such habits which we may not want them to develop. Advertisements and movies also send kids a message that smoking and drinking make a person sexy.
They get a message that everybody uses these things and therefore there is no harm if they use either. It would not be an exaggeration to say that advertising in fact, sways teens to smoking and drinking. Teens, who see a lot of ads for beer, wine, liquor, and cigarettes, too admit that it provokes them to drinking and smoking. Alcohol-related problems have proliferated among teens in recent years and have resulted in many negative consequences such as gang rape, thefts, robbery, and murder, indiscipline in school and colleges and use of unfair means and above all untimely deaths and suicides.
To our consternation, media heavily promotes unhealthy and malnutricious food like instant food, junk food and sachet packed food. On the contrary, it strongly advocates the viewers that they need to lose weight and be slim and thin. The glamorous presentation indirectly discourages people from taking up the tasks, which need physical activity.
Advertising is affecting the whole world and India the country that has inherited a rich traditional culture and values, is no exception to it. Now let us trace some of the advertisements, which are appearing on television screen and how are they distressing the children in India.