A social influence that I believe to be particularly prevalent to our society today is the use of commercial advertising in television. Commercials affect a person more than they realize. Most thirty minute television shows are really only about half the length due to the number of commercial shown during them.
Many commercials have hidden messages in them that can lure you into doing something or buying something that you may not have voluntarily. And with having roughly half of your favorite program being commercials you are constantly being lured by one product or another.
An example of how commercial advertising in television has affected me was when I was watching The OC, my favorite television show. I had missed the show at its original time due to work, so I had it taped. I had free time on the following Saturday afternoon to watch it, so I slipped it into the VCR, not hungry or thirsty because I had just eaten lunch a couple hours earlier. During one of the commercial breaks in the show a Mc Donald’s commercial came on and then next thing I know, my car keys are in my hand and I am walking out of the door. I didn’t think anything of it at the time, not until I was in my car and had started to drive did I think about why I was going there at 3:30 in the afternoon. But since I was already in the car and Mc Donald’s really did sound good to me then, I went anyway.
I never really thought about how much of an affect that a thing like a commercial could have on a person. And now I think back to that day and wish I would have fast-forwarded through the commercials so I would have saved myself some money and the unneeded extra calories.
