Advertising is harmful to society

Advertising is everywhere in our modern world. Wherever you care to look, you can find advertisements for an unimaginable variety of products. Ads play on the Internet and television, they show up in newspapers and magazines, and they decorate our cities as billboards and signs. Advertising has become so prevalent, in fact, that many people now feel it needs to be regulated. These people worry about the false messages and materialistic tone of many advertisement. Another serious concern is the negative influence that advertising has on children.

Advertisements can give false messages to people. The main purpose of advertisements is to persuade people to buy things, so they are often misleading. They are often untruthful and promise things that are unrealistic or cannot happen. Many times, people will see an advertisement and think that using the advertised product will make them feel better. Unfortunately, this is usually not the case, and many people end up wasting money because of the false messages conveyed by advertisements.

Advertisements can also be very harmful to society. They make people want things that they don’t necessarily need, so people may become more materialistic. This can make people selfish, and advertisements can make them feel bad or inferior for not owning a product. As a result, people waste vast amounts of money for material things that they don’t really need. Advertisements make people forget about important values and they create a materialistic society in which people constantly focus on superficial things.

Advertisements also have a very bad influence on children. Young children do not know that an advertisement’s purpose is to sell. So, they see advertisements and are easily convinced that they want what was advertised. This is because advertisements make their products look exciting and desirable, or they make it seem like having or using a certain product will make a person more interesting and popular. Therefore, advertisements for cigarettes, alcohol, and unhealthy foods are obviously not good for children. When children see advertisements for these items, they will want to try them. In fact, several European countries have banned advertisements that target children, and many countries have placed restrictions on cigarette and alcohol advertising.

Advertisements have become a big part of our lives, especially because of television and the Internet. Because they are so common in our lives, they can easily influence the way people think and how they spend their money. Therefore, we should be careful of what we advertise and make sure that all advertisements are strictly regulated.