Advertising discourages people from being different individuals by making us want to be and to look the same. To what extent do you agree or disagree? You should write at least 250 words.
Advertisements are ubiquitous. You cannot escape from them unless you are blind and deaf. On the newsfeed on your smartphone screen, they tempt you to buy what they want to sell. On the train or the bus, they represent themselves as visual or audible stimuli, trying to make you remember what they are about. Needless to say, they pop up on TV as commercial messages. Such advertisements are only possible when big companies, which in many cases are either monopolies or at best oligopolistic ones, have invested a huge amount of money into their marketing strategies in an extremely clever manner. Furthermore, advertisements have never been as sophisticated as they are today, because social media have allowed them to pinpoint you, according to how you have been surfing the internet to this day. In these respects, it seems rather difficult for us not to be affected by advertisements or to truly be ourselves, not “choosing” what such companies offer to us. However, I believe that we can choose to be our true selves as long as we are aware of what advertisements do to us.
Advertisements, aimed at persuading you to buy certain goods or services, are so pervasive that it is impossible to imagine a modern world without them. No matter where you are walking in a city or what TV programme you are watching, you will always be exposed to advertisements. Some suggest that you learn English, and some propose that you take medication for your “hair problems,” while others recommend you have your body hair completely removed. These (ugly) messages do urge consumers to spend their money in the way they would otherwise not. Online ads are even more powerful because they are customized for you according to your browsing history. For example, if you are a gamer, ads of video games will bombard you because you have spent a lot of time playing video games online so far, and that data is available to social media companies.
The problem is that powerful advertisements that can reach a large audience are almost always those of a few big companies dominant in the market. The real market is not the perfectly competitive market that economics textbooks depict where countless firms compete with each other. We are more or less conditioned to wanting to wear high-end clothes that world-famous fashion companies supply, or to own an unnecessarily high-quality smartphone, the market of which virtually only two companies on the globe dominate. No wonder we are getting more similar than ever in appearance and values.
There is hope, however. More and more people are becoming aware of the cunning nature of how advertisements reach us. Some of them practise digital detox, where they stay away from using their digital gadgets and computers and try to minimize the influence that social media and online advertisements have on them. Meanwhile, they might do yoga and talk to their inner self, or enjoy a face-to-face conversation with friends. Others teach children media literacy, which will allow the younger generation to be less vulnerable to TV or online ads and “separate the wheat from the chaff.” In other words, they will learn to buy things after considering for themselves what they actually desire. Such actions will certainly help each individual to keep and cherish their own uniqueness, no matter what kinds of advertisements they may be exposed to.
In conclusion, we cannot overlook the influence advertisements have upon our individualities because they exist in every nook and cranny of society and the internet. However, we can be optimistic that each one of us can be our true selves, as long as we are keenly aware of the nature and workings of them and try not be affected by them excessively.
