November 23ii
Steinheimer talks about children and their influence on consumption with brand names. She goes on to talk about who this could be detrimental and the quote that really caught my eye was, “Could the temptations of an ever-increasing number of gadgets, like smartphones, iPads, and designer brands, be luring young people away from things that really matter and destroying the environment” ( 248)? The answer is yes, children and sometimes as adults are more worried about what else they can consume. They are not worried about the world they live in because they are oblivious to negative thoughts. Children do not want to watch the documentary “BlackFish” they want to go on their computers and play sims. The more distractions we create for man-kind the more we can slide the horrific under the table.
Blaming the advertisers: They definitely influence children to think more about products. I often wonder if a child drove past a McDonalds, had never heard of it or seen any type of advertising, he or she probably would have no desire to go there. The parents would decide when to take their child there and then he or she would be hooked, advertisement played no role here. On the other hand, it is the constant reminder on television that McDonalds is down the street that makes their product have more consumers.
It is crazy how spoiling your child can negatively effect them later in life. Sternheimer also talks about the right of passage that consuming gives to a child, “being a consumer in American society is a step toward maturity” (253). I never thought of it that way, but it is true. People are constantly competing for who has the bigger, better product. After doing the advertising analysis, the original way, as it says on the syllabus, I have realized how bad commercials really are. This goes back to how the chapter talks about children influencing what their parents buy, I see it all the time.
The last chapter starts off with the topic of poverty and how our consumption of materials and media has taken us away from things that matter. Sternheimer also talks about the problem of inequality not being faced because of all the distractions (277). The chapter really just emphasizes how we fill up our day with meaningless tasks and we do not spend enough time doing things that matter. I was talking about this with someone last week. Generations before us were in survival mode. They had to get jobs that paid well, not what they wanted to do.Every task they did during the day was for survival, whether that be cooking or sewing. These days we get to do whatever we want with our free time, and most of the time, it is time wasted.
It boils down to the basics of humans trying to outdo one another. Consumers need to have the best of the best, to show they are living life correctly. How many times in movies have we seen a couples’ success be shown through how big their house is and how nice their cars are?
