From Common Dreams: http://www.commondreams.org/view/2012/12/22-2
by Ralph Nader
Published on Saturday, December 22, 2012 by Common Dreams
Family is the foundation of our American society. In many ways, the family unit is one of the last bastions of decency holding out against encroaching corporate commoditization — the corporations can sell food, medicine, clothing, entertainment, even child and elder care, but they can’t provide the love, selflessness and generosity that close family members can provide one another. But if there was a way to commercialize all those generational, biological bonds, you can be sure that profit-hungry companies and clever marketers would discover it. In the holiday season, thoughts about family abound. But the advertisements that dominate all forms of commercial media aren’t about the benefits of family life, about how parents shape the character and personality of their children, about how turning off the screens and engaging in conversation is the cornerstone of human development. Advertisements aimed at children are meant to tantalize and sell the latest toys, gadgets and video games — many of which serve as electronic babysitters that feature violence and undermine parental authority.
Every holiday season, the commercial media relentlessly hype the big products of the season with “Holiday Shopping Guides” and “Hot Lists.” These lists feature toys and gadgets that are, inevitably, in “extremely limited quantities,” forcing parents to battle it out at early morning store openings to get the latest and greatest items. These “hot item lists” are released by the retailers themselves, such as Toys-R-Us, Walmart and Target. It’s not clear why many of these items are “hot,” aside from the fact that the chain stores that sell them say so. At one time, the big Christmas item was “Cabbage Patch Kids,” and then it was “Tickle Me Elmo,” then “Furby,” and then the “Nintendo Wii”. In 2012, Furby is back — a furry, owl-like electronic doll that talks. It was popular back in 1998 and sold millions in the late 90′s. Hasbro, the manufacturers of Furby, assumed that they could replicate the same big holiday rush sales with the same toy and the same marketing hype. According to Yahoo! Shine’s Holiday Gift Guide for parents, “Desperate parents are turning to Amazon.com, where some versions of the $54 toy are selling for $80 or more, and to eBay, where less-popular colors are selling for about $75. The hottest colors come with the highest prices: $1,000 to $2,500 for a single Furby.” One of the new features of the 2012 Furby is that is can interact with iPods and iPads — another electronic gadget that advertisers tell children they need to be hip.
The Furby hype is, of course, a retail trick, designed to fuel children’s desires for a new product. This translates into children nagging parents to acquire a new toy.
Spreading “joy with toys” is a major part of what the holidays in America have become — selling directly to children, withohttp://www.commondreams.org/view/2012/12/22-2ut respect to limits, boundaries or even common decency. The result is young children are spending more time absorbing corporate marketing, resulting in shorter attention spans, reduced vocabularies, and less understanding of their local communities.
The only defense against the onslaught of commercializing childhood is for parents to become more aware of the “corporate week” — that is, their children spending more than 40 hours a week interacting with corporate products. These activities often involve idly sitting and absorbing entertainment with little to no historical or educational value. Children are spending less time reading, writing, studying, and having conversations with friends and family. The “corporate week” does not inspire critical thinking at a level beyond quick, Pavlovian responses. The potential impact on the developing psyche of young children of heavy exposure to the violence and crass humor found in entertainment is disturbing.
Continue reading at: http://www.commondreams.org/view/2012/12/22-2
