You should spend about 40 minutes on this task.
Some people believe that advertisements targeting children may have negative effects on them, and suggest banning such advertisements as a solution. To what extent do you agree or disagree?
Give reasons for your answer and include any relevant examples from your own knowledge or experience.
You should write at least 250 words.
Sample Answer
Ever since the liberalisation of media, advertisements have been its primary source of revenue. Children, who are in their formative years, are more likely to be influenced by advertisements than their elder counterparts, are regularly targeted by the marketers. It is agreed that this has negative effects on children, thus, shall be banned. This will be proven by looking at how, these advertisements can ultimately make children defiant, and play a part in distracting children from academic activities.
To begin, when children are exposed to advertisements of products that their parents can’t afford to provide for them, children often resort to defying both, their parents, and society. For instance, it is a known fact that most children, who go on to become rebels, had been deprived of their wishes for items that they don’t even need, nor can afford, such as elegant toys and expensive mobile phones. This shows that advertisements of certain kinds of products can lead children to develop delinquent tendencies. Hence, promotional material that targets children has more than its fair share of disadvantages.
In addition to this, a large number of the flashy advertisements can subconsciously have a detrimental effect on a child’s academics. For instance, after being barraged by an endless amount of advertisements in a short span of time, juveniles can lose their ability to focus on a certain task for an extended period of time. Thus being exposed to such advertisements can take its toll on a child’s brain. After analysing this, the demerits of advertisements targeting children are manifested.
Following this look at how advertisements aimed at children can, undermine their behaviour, and hinder the achievement of their academic objectives, it is evident that these advertisements have adverse effects on children. Thus it is hoped that governments should muse upon banning of such advertisements.
[ Written by – Sameed Qureshi ]