The commercialization of childhood refers to the fact that companies advertise to kids through websites, video games, and social media. These marketers use sneaky tricks that most adults aren’t even aware of! Before screen devices, we partly blocked advertising to kids since they don’t yet know how to defend themselves. Manipulating kids into thinking they MUST have a product for happiness is unfair. Convincing them that they need something can also make them anxious and feel bad about themselves. Advertising can be harmful to kids. Today’s GetKidsInternetSafe (GKIS) article was written to teach tweens and teens about the sneaky techniques that marketers use to get their money.
How an Experiment with a Rat Taught Me About Operant Conditioning
When I was at UCLA, I took a physiological psychology class. We learned how to study the effects of certain drugs on rats.
Here is how this worked.
Give the rat a drug so she doesn’t feel any pain.
Insert a wire into the pleasure center of her little rat brain.
Attach the wire to an electric source that is controlled by a lever in her cage that she presses with her little paws.
Count every time she pushes her lever to get a small electric charge to her brain’s pleasure center resulting in pleasurable feelings.
We collected two types of data; the number of times she pushed the lever when she was on her medication, and the number of times she pushed the lever when she wasn’t on any medication. If the medication enhanced pleasure, she would push the lever more. If it had no effect, she would push the same amount. If it decreased pleasure, she would push it less.
Because of the “happy inducing” medication assigned to my study group, we found that our rat pushed the lever more when she was on the medication. Not only did my happy rat teach us about the effects of the medication, but she also taught me about how behavior can be manipulated with medication and brain stimulation.
In psychology we call this operant conditioning, meaning the frequency of a behavior (like pushing a lever) is increased with reward and decreased with punishment.
Advertisers Manipulate Us with Operant Conditioning
To get us to buy things, marketers must convince us we need them. To do that, they bake in rewards for buying and punishments for not buying. Sometimes we realize that we are being manipulated, and sometimes we don’t.
Like the rat cage is designed for more lever pushes, advertisements are designed to coax a behavior from us – which is to buy, buy, buy.
Advertising to Children on Screen Devices
In 2006, the Federal Trade Commission reported that food and beverage companies spent 20 billion dollars on advertising targeting children. This often involved cross-promotion with movies or popular television programs.1 With screen devices (like game stations, computers, smartphones, tablets, and handheld game devices), we are exposed to more advertising than ever!
Advertising Techniques Used to Manipulate Kids
Internet marketing influences child brains like the electricity influenced the rat’s brain. Advertisements impact our neurology. That is why advertising designed to influence our brains is called neuromarketing. By persuading you with the company’s messaging (also called branding), you learn to like and trust that brand.
When kids visit websites or play games online, what sneaking advertising tricks might they expect?
Appealing characters that are designed to build brand loyalties at an early age
Banners and popups with lots of color and movement designed to attract and keep their attention
Featured games, puzzles, contests, toys, videos, and appealing activities that are branded to keep kids engaged for long periods of time. The longer you are on screen, the more exposure to the different marketing strategies
Promises of discounts and extra value to encourage pester power (the powerful influence of begging kids on parents’ wallets)
Action commands that create anxiety and spur buying behaviors like BUY NOW, GO NOW, SHOP NOW, PLAY NOW, LEARN MORE
Internet marketing is neither all-good nor all-bad. Sometimes we want to watch advertising content and learn about new things to buy. There is even advertising within online educational products (like the website you are on now). Without customer purchases, companies can’t afford to make cool things.
Young Kids Don’t Yet Have the Brain Abilities to Defend Against Marketing
The good news is that you have found GetKidsInternetSafe.com as a resource to start this educational process and ultimately better educate yourself and your children.
The bad news is that psychological research has demonstrated that, even when trained, children under eight years old lack the cognitive ability to view commercials defensively. In other words, young kids have a limited ability to understand the vocabulary, sentences, and inference drawing required for analyzing marketing schemes. For young kids, visual aspects of advertising dominate informational aspects. Their brains soak in the fun but fail to see the business side of screen time.
Although tweens and teens have the brain wiring to learn the tricks, even with parents helping young kids may still not be able to see them. For this reason, it is important that we limit child exposure to online advertisements and content. Parents must choose what their young kids watch wisely and only allow screen time for short periods of time. As kids grow older and onboard more reasoning abilities, they become less vulnerable to the tricks if they know what they are looking for!
Your Call to Action
Over the next week, I challenge you to change your focus while you are online. Instead of being a passive consumer (watching without thinking), keep an eye out for the marketing strategies embedded within each activity. Notice what tempts you and holds your attention and why. Notice that some strategies push for an immediate sale, while others coax a long-term trusting relationship with the brand to breed familiarity for ongoing sales. Share your observations and your opinions about what is fair play and what isn’t with your friends, parents, and teachers. Pay particular attention to strategies geared toward the adult viewer versus the child viewer.
