Corporate influence children

Introduction

Today everything is effect by the corporate world. Because everything is depend upon it. The biggest part of the income of any country is depends on the corporate sector of that country. The economic growth of a country is also depends on the corporate. And life style of people is also grows up by the new products provided by the corporate to them. So in short corporate world effects everyone. But here I would like to give a special attention towards that group which is most effected by the corporate world but has no knowledge about it. So this group is effects due to no knowledge and gives a very great advantage to the corporate world. Because different corporate can sell their products, which have very less cost at very high prices. This group or members of this group are children. We can see that today there are many products in the market for children. These products are very attractive because of their attractiveness kids want to purchase them even they do not know the advantages or disadvantages of that product. And also because of these products there is very big change in the lifestyle of kids. So in short corporate influence the children very much.

Research by great researchers

We can make this issue more clear by reading the following information. which is collected by the great researchers by spending their precious time.

"The Journal of the American Medical Association has said that children between the ages of two and seventeen watch an annual average of 15,000 to 18,000 hours of television, compared with 12,000 hours spent per year in school. Children are also major targets for TV advertising, whose impact is greater than usual because there is an apparent lessening of influence by parents and others in the older generation. ... According to the [Committee on Communications of the American Academy of Pediatrics], children under the age of two should not watch television at all because at that age, brain development depends heavily on real human interactions. Nevertheless, $1 billion a year in spent on ads and commercials directed at children."

Reference; — Ben H. Bagdikian, The Media Monopoly, Sixth Edition, (Beacon Press, 2000), p. xxxvi

As well as children being targeted via the education system in the USA, as mentioned above, there is increasing concern at ad campaigns that are increasingly targeting childrento be consumers and overly conscious about materialistic things, perhaps even at the expense of human qualities. One of the main reasons for such a fascination in children in this way is because of the potential purchasing power that children have.

""In my practice I see kids becoming incredibly consumerist," said Kanner, who is based at the Wright Institute, a graduate psychology school in Berkeley, Calif. "The most stark example is when I ask them what they want to do when they grow up. They all say they want to make money. When they talk about their friends, they talk about the clothes they wear, the designer labels they wear, not the person's human qualities."

...

""In the 1960s, children aged 2 to 14 directly influenced about $5 billion in parental purchases," McNeal [professor of marketing at Texas A&M University] wrote [in an April 1998 article in American Demographics]. "In the mid-1970s, the figure was $20 billion, and it rose to $50 billion by 1984. By 1990, kids' direct influence had reached $132 billion, and in 1997, it may have peaked at around $188 billion. Estimates show that children's aggregate spending roughly doubled during each decade of the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s, and has tripled so far in the 1990s.""

Reference; — Miriam H. Zoll, Psychologists Challenge Ethics Of Marketing To Children, MediaChannel.org

Above of these are the very important points and helps us to understand the corporate influence on children. And we can see that how they make target to the kids to sell their product and earn more profits.

We have also many examples in our daily life that how corporate effects the children like

v When kids go to a toys shop there are many toys of high prices and by looking at them they want to carry these toys with them at home. Because of this they force their parents to buy these toys for them. This is not a very big deal if their parents buy these toys for their kids but, in future this habit of kids become a very big problem for the parents.

v Different type of eating product are also available for kids in the market like chocolates, chips, biscuits, and kurkure’s etc. and gernaly these are of very poor quality but today kids are very fond of these things. And these thing have very bad effect on the health of kids. Because of this we can see kids are not healthy now and their growth is also not very good.

v Due to these imaginative advertisements kids are also psychological effected. Because they become more imaginative then practical.

Conclusion:- So we can say that corporate influence children very much. But we know everything has pros and cons. So if there are many bad aspects of this on the other hand there are some of these are good. Like, corporate are providing many new products to children which are very helpful to make their brain sharp and increase their knowledge. Children get aware about the use of new products like electronic games etc.