Televised advertising directed toward young children (aged 2-5) should not be allowed

[Mtao Khoa]

Do you agree or disagree with the statement

Televised advertising directed toward young children (aged 2-5) should not be allowed

 

 

Children at a very young age are very sensitive to new things. Apart from lessons from the adults, children can be strongly influenced by advertisment on TV. While some people think that televised advertising should not be allowed towards young children because of harmful effects; others think otherwise because advertisement can be useful for children to learn. In my opinion, these people all have their points, because since children are very attracted to advertisement, it can have both negative and positive effects on them.

 

 

For the negative part, young children, influenced by advertisement, tend to confuse between fantasy and reality. Although as adults, we all know that advertisement often exaggerates or creates great but ambiguous impression, children at a very young age may not able to recognize what is real and what is fake. For example, when I was a kid, I watched a lot of advertisement about different bands of noodles on TV. Often in the advertisement, I saw not only noodles but also fancy shrimps, mushroom and other vegetables. TAt that time, I believed that all the thing in the noodles bowl should be in the package sold in the food store. The advertisement excited me to the point that I begged my mother to buy a lot of noodles from that band for me. It's just when I opened the package and cooked the noodles that I started recognizing something was wrong. My bowl of noodles did not contain shrimps, mushrooms and vegetables like the one on the TV. I was very disappointed because I believed my food to be exactly like the one on screen.

 

 

However, if used correctly, advertisement can be educational to students. Because advertisement often impresses the children a lot, it can also easily spread meaningful messages towards children. For example, I have a sister who is four years old and she really liked to watch television. One day we sat together and watched a television commercial about a milk product. The advertisement was about a young cow (the animal used for creating milk) who gained strength to travel around the world because he drank milk. However, besides advertising about the milk product, the advertisement showed a lot of knowledge about places in the world. Finally, all the knowledge was compressed into a song so that children who remembered the commercial can sing that song. As the matter of fact, my sister started singing the catchy tunes everytime she was around. The interesting thing is, although she remembered things about the commercial, she also remembered the knowledge that the advertisement provided, which is a good thing.

 

 

In conclusion, advertisement can be two-sided: Used correctly and it'll be beneficial to children, used wrongly and it'll harm children.

[Mini Gupta]

Hello Mtao,

 

The ideas you want to convey are very amusing, specifically the example of noodles. However, I feel that you need to improve your word-choice. Secondly, try to use concise sentences apt for conveying the meaning. Reading a longer sentence renders the reader bored. For example, the sentence "While some people think that televised advertising should not be allowed towards young children because of harmful effects; others think otherwise because advertisement can be useful for children to learn." can be effectively replaced by "While some people think that televised advertising should not be allowed towards young children; others think otherwise". It is quite apparent that one won't support a cause as it may be harmful in their opinion and vice versa.

 

On an average, I would rate this essay 21/30