“Advertising has gone too far and is now a necessary evil. ” This essay will discuss the topic “advertising has gone too far and is now a necessary evil”, especially referring to advertising directed at children. For the sake of this essay, “advertising” is defined as any public promotion of something, mainly products directed at children. “Gone too far” is defined as crossing the line of moral values and is now harming the safety and welfare of society. “Necessary” is defined as needed and inevitable, and something we cannot live without. Finally, “evil” is defined as something that is extremely unpleasant, harmful, and/or morally wrong.
This essay will discuss the ways in which advertising has gone too far, if it is indeed evil, and if it is necessary. First, however, the ways in which advertising has gone too far must be addressed. This essay will now enter into the question of advertising being evil – something that is extremely unpleasant, harmful, and/or morally wrong. Looking at this definition, we can see that advertising is in fact, an evil. The careful manipulation, the messages they show, the ways in which they brainwash these children, and even the mere idea of children advertising is extremely unpleasant, with experts calling advertisers “creepy”.
The brainwashing alone is harmful in that it makes children’s minds compatible with whatever the advertising industry wants, and it is also extremely harmful through the mental health diseases and problems that it leads to mentioned earlier. And finally, it can clearly be seen that this negative impact the advertising industry is having on these young and vulnerable children – the future of this world – is certainly not moral for many of the reasons stated above when discussing its unpleasantness and harmfulness.
Therefore, using the definition of evil that this essay has used, advertising is indeed evil, and is also evil in other ways not already mentioned. Today’s society is putting money, profit, and sold products before the health and safety of children. Mere material items that in the end have no value, and the vision of success and riches, drives advertisers to jeopardize the health and safety, as this essay has already discussed, of children – the generation that will soon become the adults of this world.
If these children are being severely damaged now, how can we be sure they will be able to take on the responsibility of an adult when they leave childhood? These issues need to be addressed, as we cannot keep treating children the way we are today if we want the world to continue in an orderly and sequential fashion. Action needs to take place now. They are growing up now, and change needs to happen within approximately ten years if we are to succeed in fixing the problem. Otherwise, it will be too late. Another factor supporting advertising being evil is the issue of money. 40 billion is spent per year on advertising targeted at children, with this figure rising very radically. If, however, children advertising was regulated, then billions of dollars would be in our hands, which could be used to help the major global issues, such as poverty or the financial crisis. It has been estimated that just $13 billion per year would satisfy the world’s sanitation and food requirements. This money could be easily be obtained if advertising was regulated, still with billions left over for other global issues.
There are more important things than endangering children’s health and safety, and these things can be looked into. However, it is thought that advertising is necessary by many, and this question must also be looked into. Every product needs to have some sort of advertising if it is to sell, so therefore advertising would be necessary for the stabilisation of countless of jobs. However, if the product is not necessary, which almost all of the products advertised to these children aren’t as these products create the want and need, then neither is the advertising or anything to do with this product.
In this world today our children are consumed by the power of want, the desire to have and buy stuff, as they are told stuff will make you happy and cool and that it will give you worth to your life. Because of the importance that one has worth to their life, and the dramatic messages of advertising brainwashing our children, this want becomes ‘need’, and suddenly we lose our grip on the truth – that all we truly ‘need’ is food, water, oxygen, etc. Suddenly all we need becomes food, water, oxygen, SpongeBob Squarepants Mac ‘N’ Cheese, ladybug hairclips, a Kidspiration® 2. , a pirate ship park… Is this really what we want for our children? To be consumed in this world of ‘stuff’, thinking that their lives will only gain worth if they have everything, under the care of an advertiser with the only interest of money, and without any understanding of moral values and ethics? This is not necessary. We do not need all these products directed at children, and it has now come to the point that we, seeing what it is doing to our children, do not want them.
Advertising, as stated before, has gone too far, and it is now “necessary” to regulate children advertising if we wish to maintain a healthy and stable world. We can change the situation; advertising is not unavoidable and the problem can be solved with careful regulation and laws to support the health and safety of children. And, with the support of the government and justice system, the issue of loss of jobs can also be solved. Necessary, as stated earlier, is defined as ‘needed and inevitable, and something we cannot live without. Advertising is neither needed nor inevitable, and is something that we most certainly can live without. In conclusion, the reader can now see the ways in which advertising has gone too far, including how these vulnerable children are bombarded with it every day, with the messages of being either violent and bad or sexy and also the messages that stuff will make you happy, as well as the health risks and issues that it leads to.
Why and how advertising is in fact evil and how we could easily be spending the money on other global issues has also become clear, as well as the reasons why it is not necessary and the importance of regulating. Therefore, the statement “advertising has gone too far and is now a necessary evil” is true with a slight adjustment: “Advertising has gone too far and is now an unnecessary evil. ” {draw:frame}
