Parents, grandparents, teachers, caretakers, and anyone who cares about children and the future of our nation, must read Susan Linn's, Consuming Kids, and take action. At it's core, Consuming Kids, examines the negative affects that marketing and advertising have on children. The disturbing fact is that marketing to children is a booming industry that is essentially profiting from programming children. The question Linn presents to the reader is: who is responsible for shaping our children? Is it McDonald's? Is it the Worldwide Wrestling Federation? Is it Pepsi? Is it Barbie? Linn argues and I agree with her, that today's generation of children are not basing their identity or values around those of their parents or friends, but are rather being shaped by brands and large corporations.
I myself am a student of media and marketing, having chosen a major in Communication Arts. In addition to this, I have spent my past six summers as a full-time nanny, and one day hope to be a mother myself. Why is this so important? All of these credentials provided me with the ability to read Linn's book from many different perspectives, however, in the end I received the same message no matter through what lens I was looking; marketing to children needs to stop, not only for children's benefit, but also for the benefit and well-being of society.
Linn brings a new perspective, as a mother and an Instructor in Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School. Linn also serves as Associate Director of the Media Center at Judge Baker Children's Center in Boston. Her background allows her to speak from a mother's perspective, while also utilizing her experience in psychology when examining some of the tactics in campaigning and marketing to children. She successfully finds a balance between the concern of a mother and a deliverer of facts, making her a reliable and credible source. Through multiple personal examples, in addition to statistics and data, Linn reveals the harms of marketing to children.
Linn reflects on an era when children spent their time playing outside and creating fantastic imaginary worlds; however, as Linn points out, today a child cannot even read a popular novel, such as Harry Potter and bring his/her own imagination to it. Harry Potter has been constructed for them, no need to imagine what Hogwart's School looks like because they can see Harry Potter's entire world by watching the movie. Essentially Linn shows the reader that children are becoming programmed by the media and advertising. No longer do they stretch their minds and think for themselves, but rather they have become desensitized and need to be constantly entertained by way of television, video games, and computer games. When I nanny in the summers, the phrase "I'm bored" is uttered by every child in the family usually multiple times a day. My suggestions to play outside, color, or play a board game, are met by whines and responses of "I don't want to". Instead they prefer for me to take them to the video store to rent a movie or to simply act as couch potatoes, staring blankly at the television.
Linn's point is that corporations, commercial media, and advertisers are concerned with one thing and that is making a profit. The notion of instilling the correct values and lessons in children, in addition to reinforcing creativity and individuality, seems to have fallen to the waste side and has been replaced by images of sex and violence. Marketers strive to grab children's attention; sex and violence are only two examples of tactics that have proven to be successful. Not only is it problematic for a six year old to be playing with "lingerie Barbie", but also on a larger scale, where is the responsibility on the part of the marketers? Would they want their child playing with a scantly clothed doll? What lessons does that doll teach a child?
These questions of social and ethical responsibility are the heart and core of Linn's book. Linn recognizes that parents can only do so much and say "no" so many times before it begins to take a serious toll on their child/parent relationship. Therefore, she reassures parents that they are not the ones to blame, nor should they be blamed for problems surrounding children's exposure to negative and harmful images, but rather, people need to ban together and take action against the source of the problem which is the media themselves. Keeping consistent in tone and purpose, Linn offers a list of simple suggestions for parents to do their part in stopping the "marketing maelstrom". The future looks bleak if the media's messages to children revolve around sex, violence, and materialism. We must stop the advertising beast before it causes permanent damage and jeopardizes the future of society.
