Kids and Commercials

(Photos courtesy of Jupiter Images)
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I think the television is an incredible source of learning and entertainment - it's just a matter of choice. When it comes to TV and our kids my husband and I are pretty strict about what they watch. We record shows and they watch them when it's "TV Time" but there is no easy way to block out all those commercials. Of course PBS and a few others are a great non commercial sources but what about all of the rest. Since the shows we watch are for the most part pre-taped it's easy enough to skip through advertisements but they do occasionally slip in.

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I recently found a cool website called, "The New American Dream". Below is a small excerpt about commercialism and children I found.

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Facts About Marketing To Children
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Advertising directed at children is estimated at over $15 billion annually – about 2.5 times more than what it was in 1992.

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Over the past two decades, the degree to which marketers have scaled up efforts to reach children is staggering. In 1983, they spent $100 million on television advertising to kids. Today, they pour roughly 150 times that amount into a variety of mediums that seek to infiltrate every corner of children’s worlds.

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The average American child today is exposed to an estimated 40,000 television commercials a year — over 100 a day.