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Saturday, Jul 11, 2009
A new study shows that kids who watch lots of TV ads are more likely to suffer from depression, anxiety, stomachaches and other problems.
Sep 8, 2004 | It will come as no surprise to parents that kids who watch an excessive amount of TV will want Mom and Dad to buy them an excessive amount of stuff. But can heavy media consumption also cause kids to be depressed and anxious, and exhibit low self-esteem? Could it make your child's stomach ache or her head hurt?
Juliet B. Schor, a professor of sociology at Boston College and recognized expert on consumerism, economics and family studies, says yes. According to a study Schor conducted from 2001 to 2003, consumer involvement affects psychological outcomes -- often in negative ways. Schor spent over four years studying the impact of marketing on children. She trailed marketers and researchers who focus specifically on kids, shadowing them at conventions, paging through their client presentations, and talking to them about the ethics of their profession. The results make up her chilling new book, "Born to Buy: The Commercialized Child and the New Consumer Culture." "Psychologically healthy children will be made worse off if they become more enmeshed in the culture of getting and spending," she writes. "Children with emotional problems will be helped if they disengage from the worlds that corporations are constructing for them."
Schor talked to Salon on the phone from her home in Newton, Mass., about the pervasiveness of marketing in children's lives -- and why it makes some marketers feel like they're going to "burn in hell."
What was your motivation for analyzing the effects of marketing to children? How much of it was inspired by personal conviction and how much by professional interests?
It was really a combination. As I was working on my book "The Overspent American," I was struck by the growth of marketing to kids. Companies know that children are much more vulnerable to marketing than adults are, and that gives marketers the ability to establish brand loyalty at a young age. So today's kids are exposed to more commercial messages than adults are.
At the same time, I had two of my own children [a 12-year-old boy and 9-year-old girl] who just were getting to the ages where consumer culture was becoming more of an issue for our family.
I think we've all had the sneaking suspicion that advertising to little kids can't be good for them. But what makes this book revolutionary? Is it the age of the kids, the scope of the advertising, the methods used by marketers?
My "Survey on Children, Media, and Consumer Culture," which was taken by 300 kids ages 10 to 13 from 2001 to 2003, is the first study to look at the overall impact of consumer culture on children. There's been a lot of discussion about the rise of marketing, and there's been a lot of research on particular products -- for example, we know that eating junk food leads to obesity, we know that TV has a range of effects -- but no one has ever asked the question: Now that kids are immersed in consumer culture to an unprecedented degree, what effect is this having on them?
The natural tendency is to assume there is something about consumer culture that attracts problem kids and that's why they get so heavily into it. I tested that theory -- using a statistical model to rule out other variables -- along with the reverse theory that high involvement with consumer culture creates problem kids.
However, I didn't find that advertising and consumer culture attracted problem kids. That really surprised me. I only found that high involvement in consumer culture causes problems! Consumer involvement can lead to depression, anxiety, stomachaches and headaches, boredom, psychosomatic complaints, fighting with parents, etc.
The statistical findings do not tell us exactly how consumer involvement affects psychological outcomes, only that it does. We can speculate on that (I do in the book), but the bottom line is that it's not only what we eat, but also what we watch, what we aspire to, what media we let in our lives: All these things affect our physical and emotional well-being.
