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There's a certain immunity to ads that we develop over time. To the extent that we protect kids from them we could make them more vulnerable to them. Like a pea

There's a certain immunity to ads that we develop over time. To the extent that we protect kids from them we could make them more vulnerable to them. Like a peanut allergy. I bought crap when I was a kid based on cheesy ads in the back of magazines. One was a Real Submarine for $5. Spoiler, it wasn't a real submarine. That's a good lesson to learn before you go shopping for cars and houses.

kibwen 7y ago
On the other hand, it's also good to demonstrate to children that advertising is not some utterly inevitable and inescapable phenomenon, and that an experience without ads can possibly exist (and is more pleasant to boot). Don't just teach your kids to ignore ads; teach them to explicitly recognize their mentally-manipulative properties and outright oppose ads.
- hirundo 7y ago
  > teach them to explicitly recognize their mentally-manipulative properties The most effective way to teach them that is to let them spend their own hard-saved money on stuff-they-really-want-that's-actually-garbage. To do that they need to be exposed to the minor league con artists behind so many ads. Anything short of that will be mere theoretical knowledge, inconsistently applied.
  - kibwen 7y ago
    I don't think that's enough, because not all advertisements seek an immediate purchase. Furthermore, learning the explicit levers in your brain that marketing execs seek to pull can then be usefully applied to becoming more cognizant of implicit manipulation elsewhere, such as in the case of political propaganda. Theoretical knowledge should be applied in addition to first-hand experience; there's no need for people to reinvent all this from scratch solely for the sake of experiential learning. Even without ads on children's content on YouTube, I'm not at all concerned about a child's ability to thoroughly experience advertising in their formative years.

kibwen 7y ago

On the other hand, it's also good to demonstrate to children that advertising is not some utterly inevitable and inescapable phenomenon, and that an experience without ads can possibly exist (and is more pleasant to boot). Don't just teach your kids to ignore ads; teach them to explicitly recognize their mentally-manipulative properties and outright oppose ads.

hirundo 7y ago
> teach them to explicitly recognize their mentally-manipulative properties The most effective way to teach them that is to let them spend their own hard-saved money on stuff-they-really-want-that's-actually-garbage. To do that they need to be exposed to the minor league con artists behind so many ads. Anything short of that will be mere theoretical knowledge, inconsistently applied.
- kibwen 7y ago
  I don't think that's enough, because not all advertisements seek an immediate purchase. Furthermore, learning the explicit levers in your brain that marketing execs seek to pull can then be usefully applied to becoming more cognizant of implicit manipulation elsewhere, such as in the case of political propaganda. Theoretical knowledge should be applied in addition to first-hand experience; there's no need for people to reinvent all this from scratch solely for the sake of experiential learning. Even without ads on children's content on YouTube, I'm not at all concerned about a child's ability to thoroughly experience advertising in their formative years.