Is Advertising Harmful?

For many years when it started , advertising was a divine gift to the mass media . It embodied the epitome of information superhighway during the time when it was starting as it allowed consumers to get information about products and services at the comfort of their homes , while reading the news for instance , or perhaps while watching the television or listening to the radio . Advertisers , however , were not content on how they can reach consumers and thus initiated ways in ensuring that every centavo they spend in advertising will pay off and entice consumers to buy . Competition also grew as time passed by and today there are too many options for consumers to choose from.

This put pressure in the advertisers . The need to sell pushed them to find ways to sell . Oftentimes , the advertising is the best medium to do so given the wide reach and reception that it has . This all led to the harmful effects that many scholars and researchers claim that advertising has . The harms of advertising can be found in its effects in the media , economy , in children and families , and human behavior in general.

For one , the media has become advertiser-driven . While before the media 's thrust is to entertain and inform its audiences , it has now become a repository of information of advertisers , their products , and their services . Many shows , in fact , have now been created for the benefit of advertisers and to increase their selling points . There are television programs as well that are created entirely to market a single product , which creates monopoly against products who do not have the capacity such as finances to produce such advertising shows Economically , this subtle monopoly has lead many small businesses to close down and further empower the primacy of the larger competitors.

These harmful effects are further ratified by the intrusion and repetitiveness of advertisements . From the time one wakes up , eats rides to work or school , and goes back