IELTS Writing Task 2

Topic:

There are many advertisements directed at children. Parents argue that children are misled, while advertisers consider advertising a source of useful information. What is your opinion?

Advertising has increasingly become one of the most principal means of promoting products in today’s world. Therefore, its impacts on audience, especially on children have been carefully concerned. In my opinion, advertisements targeted at children can do more harm than good.

The first reason is that commercials have a tendency to give products an exaggerated account. In order to boost sales, advertising producers will have to design a piece of advertising that can be able to attract young consumers and elicit their desire of purchasing. This can be done by stressing those attributes of a product that are likely to be valued by the youth, resulting in misleading information. For example, advertising can tell children only by drinking milk of a given brand, can they become the smartest student in class without the need to spend time on learning. This might cause a dire consequence to children’s perception about learning as they might be immersed in the belief that they have to consume more milk to improve their academic performance, not that they have to learn harder.

The second reason is that some advertisements have violent content, which can be detrimental to children’s development. Young children are still in the process of forming their personality and are not yet be able to distinguish between good and bad. As a result, overly exposing to violent advertising can lead to aggressive behaviours in children, with school bullying an early example. If not being well-controlled, toxic advertising, which is pervasive on the Internet, can result in more serious repercussions. For instance, a grown-up, whose childhood has been heavily impacted by violence might perceive violence as the norm and show no mercy when treating others. This type of people tend to resolve a situation by law of the jungle, which often results in mass shooting, causing a massive toll to society in terms of both lives and possessions.

In conclusion, although advertisements are an effective means for manufacturers to reach to their end users, those that target at children should be restricted and strictly controlled because of many negative impacts they might have on children’s buying behaviour and perception.