Effects of advertisement for childeren and youth - Research Paper Example

The effect of advertisement on children has been a controversial issue for nearly as long as there has been television and, this is because children are exposed to sexual, violent and other content and with their impressionable minds, they can be negatively influenced by this. This essay examines the effects of TV commercial on children with emphasis on the negative ones while recognizing it plays some important roles nonetheless. There can be no doubt about the fact that sex does indeed sell, Cognizant of this fact many advertisement firms use sex related material and messages to get the attention of the viewers.

Unfortunately, while these are normally targeting adult’s children who often have unrestricted or unsupervised access to TV, this becomes collateral damage when exposed to the many sexually insinuative adverts out there. Take an example of Gucci it runs among others a commercial with a picture of a half-naked man with a woman on her knees at his feet in magazines accessible to children (Poulton, 2011). According to the longitudinal carried out in 2009 and presented to the pediatric societies, children exposure to sexual content on TV makes them more likely to become sexually active early and hence run a greater risk of sexually transmitted diseases (Morris, 2011).

Moreover, another negative aspect of TV commercials on children is that they can encourage bad behaviors such as drug and alcohol abuse as well as violence. Camel cigarettes was under fire recently when a cigarette commercial was claimed to target teen age girls, in the one of the ads was a picture of a little, classic, black dress and fashion accessories, juxtaposed with a patent leather cigarette case. This could clearly have attracted the attention of teenage girls who would normally associate with the most of the aforementioned items (Boyles, n.d). This and such commercials others portraying violence and other conventionally antisocial behavior are likely to negatively influence children.

Nonetheless, not all adverts are negative and several of them actually play an important role in informing and educating children on per tin tissues such as health and even sexuality. Condom adverts for instance are known to have a negative effect on teens, however, the upside is they provide information on safe sex, and this information is very important to keep help them protect themselves should they decide to have sex anyway.Ultimately, it is the collective duty of parents and TV and advertising firms to keep children safe form the adverts that have a detrimental effect on them.

Parents by ensuring their children do not watch them, by supervising their TV access and installing parental controls on their Personal computers (Iowa State University, 2011). TV and adverting firms, are obligated to protect children from such as part of their, social, corporate responsibility, this should be done by avoiding ads that might negatively influence children.ReferencesIowa State University. (2011). ISU study finds effects of TV ad violence on kids; researchers see Super Bowl implications.

Retrieved from http://archive.news.iastate.edu/news/2011/jan/adviolence Boyles, S. (n.d). “Cigarette Ad May Have Targeted Teen Girls” WebMD. Retrieved fromhttp://www.webmd.com/smoking-cessation/news/20100315/cigarette-ad-may-have-targeted-teen-girlsMorris, I. (2011). “Negative Effects of Television on Kids” livestrong.com. Retrieved fromhttp://www.livestrong.com/article/254742-negative-effects-of-television-on-kids/Poulton, S. (2011). “Sexualisation of our children is a crime that is endemic in our celebrity commercial culture.

” Dailymail online. Retrieved from http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-2068537/The-ASA-tackling-child-sexualisation-advertising-Lets-hope-spot-subtle-obvious.html