p2pnet - rss feed: Danger! school is back
p2pnet.net News:- It’s dangerous for kids’ mental health to go to school these days, thanks to the entertainment industry.
Teachers are already being bombarded with spurious Hollywood ‘educational’ programs, software makers recently introduced Willy the Copyright Weasel to brainwash school children, and the Federal Communications Commission has just jumped on the same bandwagon with the Broadcast Cat, designed to promote The FCC Way.
Kids are instructed to pay attention to what adults say, and they’re already exposed to relentless, mind-numbing advertising every time they switch in the TV.
And now the summer vacation is over, schools that encourage Net access face yet another hazard to pupil (and parent) well-being.
“Little is formally being done to shield kids in school or at home from ‘immersive advertising’ or corporate-sponsored ‘advergames’ such as the Neopets Web site, which contains loads of embedded advertising messages and links to merchandise,” says a Reuters story.
“This is flying under the radar screen of most parents and teachers,” the story quotes Jeff Chester, executive director at the Center for Digital Democracy, as saying. In June, the CDD asked the FTC to review interactive marketing and branding technologies used to target kids and also called on the ad industry to adopt a moratorium on such techniques until more research was done, says Reuters.
According to Juliet Schor, professor of sociology at Boston College and author of “Born to Buy: The Commercialized Child and the New Consumer Culture,” the average American child is exposed to 40,000 ad messages each year.
The likes of McDonald’s and soft-drink companies “are forging contracts with schools,” says the story, going on:
“Schools are just not as concerned to the dangers of advertising and commercialism on the Web as they are about pornography and decency for various reasons,” said Katherine Montgomery, a communication professor at American University in Washington.
“So many schools have made deals with corporate sponsors and are already so highly commercialized.”
Child advocates say youngsters often can’t tell they’re being pitched products because this kind of advertising blurs the lines between marketing and entertainment, says Reuters.
“Experts fear that little is really known about long-term effects on children’s brain development and emotional systems.”
Advertisers spend about $15 billion a year targeting kids through sites like Neopets, “which has ads embedded into games and links to Web sites operated by McDonald’s, General Mills Inc.and Procter & Gamble Co,” says the report.
Thank the Lord my wife and I home-school our daughter.
JN
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See:-
‘educational’ programs - MPAA: brainwashing children, p2pnet, April 27, 2004
Copyright Weasel - BSA weasels into schools, p2pnet, August 13, 2004
Broadcast Cat -FCC launches Kidszone, p2pnet, September 13, 2004
embedded advertising - Livewire: Back to School Means Back to Advergames, Reuters, September 15, 2004
September 16th, 2004 at 4:07 pm
This is way off topic, but you raised it so is there a site which tells you about how to home school your children that you know of?
September 16th, 2004 at 4:14 pm
Do a search for John Holt and John Taylor Gatto as a start. Both have written books that you’ll find in the library system.
And of course, you can explore the subject via your favourite search engine.
If you DO decide to teach your kid at home, you’ll be amazed at the results. Cheers!
September 17th, 2004 at 1:55 am
Jass,
I am a FRESHMAN ON MY VERY FIRST DAY OF “THE REAL SCHOOL OF MUSIC PROFORMANCE “, WELCOME TO THE REAL WORD.
I THINK I AM SO EAGER TO LEARN I DON’T KNOW ANYTHING AT ALL THAT IS THE TRUTH (OUTSIDE OF WRITING THE SONGS). THE STRANGES THING IS THAT AFTER I ATE THAT MERCURY IN THAT FOOD I HAVE NOT RECALLED WHAT I USE TO KNOW ABOUT A FEW THINGS. WELL I SEEM TO HAVE THE INTREST OF SOME INVESTORS AND I HAVE TO BE BARE-FOOT BUT-NAKED HONEST WITH THEN AND CONFESS THE TRUTH TO THEM AND TELL THEM I AM A COMPLETE STUDENT ON MY FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL WITH THEM. THEY DON’T SEEM TO CARE AFTER THEY WATCHED ME WRITE A NEW SONG,…. AND I WAS SO AFRAID THAT THEY WOULD NOT LIKE MY SONG,.. AND WHEN I STARTED WRITING THE SONG FOR THEM IT WAS LIKE EVERYBODY AROUND ME DISAPPEARED TO ME AND THEY WAS STILL SITTING THERE,…. I FELL ALL OFF IN LOVE WITH THE NEW-MUSIC ALL OVER AGAIN, IN MY OWN WORLD,… AND SOMEHOW I KEEP AMAZING MYSELF TIME AFTER TIME AGAIN AND AGAIN,… I AM SERIOUSLY IN LOVE WITH MUSIC EVEN MORE THAN THE THINGS THAT I REALLY NEED, AND I FILL BAD BECAUSE I KNOW I HAVE NESSESITIES THAT I REALLY NEED, NEED, NEED, AND WHILE I AM THERE CREATING THE SONG LETTING ALL OF MY FEELINGS OUT,… JUST A TEAR AWAY FROM CRYING MYSELF TO DEATH I ALWAYS SEEM TO BRING SOMETHING FROM MY LIFE OF PAIN AND SUFFERING TO THE NEW-MUSIC THAT I CAN NOT SEEM TO EXPLAIN,… AND THEY LIKED IT,…. SO I AM REALLY SO APPRECIATIVE INDEED TO BE A COMPLETELY GREATFUL AND HUMBLED SO MUCH THAT I KNOW THAT MY INNER SELF HAS CHANGED, AND I SEE THINGS FROM A MORE SERIOUS POINT OF VEIW BECAUSE OF MY NEEDS AND MY NEED TO TAKE CARE OF YOU JANET,…. AND MEETING MY NEEDS IS MANDATORY SO IT IS NOT NO BIG DEAL TO ME AS MUCH AS DEFENDING YOU AND BEING ABLE TO DEFEND YOUR FREEDOM TO MAKE YOUR OWN CHOICES WITH OUT ANY STINGS BEING ATTACHED TO ANYTHING AND EVERYTHING THAT YOU WANT OUT OF YOUR LIFE, I WANT YOU TO KNOW BY DAY TO DAY EXPERIANCE WITH ME FACE TO FACE THAT I WILL ALWAYS STAND WITH YOU EVEN IF I DISAGREE WITH YOU AND WE BOTH KNOW HOW SOMETIMES THINGS JUST HAPPEN BECAUSE NOBODY NEVER KNOWS,… I WANT YOU TO BE ABLE TO LOOK ME IN THE EYES NO MATTER WHAT AND KNOW THAT I AM WITH YOU, AND YOU CAN FEEL THAT SUPPORT OF WHAT EVER YOU ARE FEELING INSIDE THAT RUSH AND RELEAFE OF YOUR HEARTBEATING NATURALLY.
THIS SEEMS LIKE A DREAM THAT ARE ACTUALLY GOALS FOR MY FRIENDSHIP IN APPRECIATION FOR YOU BEING WHERE EVER YOU ARE LISTENING TO ME,… I USE TO TALK TO MY DAD AND HE ALWAYS LISTENED TO ME,… NOW I AM A FRESH AND NEW STUDENT AND LOOK AT HOW MY ENTIRE MIND AND HEART HAS CHANGED,… BECAUSE I WANT TO LISTEN SO DESPERATELY THAT I WANT TO LEARN SO I WANT THE CONFIDENCE OF MY INSTRUCTOR THAT JUST HAPPENS TO BE MY INVESTOR,….
GOLDENLOVE
September 17th, 2004 at 3:07 am
Who is this guy? These posts show up (until someone at P2Pnet deletes them). But they don’t get them all. hehehe
Must be good dope =)
September 17th, 2004 at 12:46 pm
Has anyone seen the education section of today’s Guardian?
http://education.guardian.co.uk/schoolsworldwide/story/0,14062,1306747,00.html
Here is one child who could certainly have benefited from home schooling …
“Raghda Alassar’s classmates did not hear the Israeli bullet that tore into the nine-year-old’s brain as she wrote an English test. But as a pool of blood spread across her desk and spilled on to the floor, a wall of screams rose from the classroom …”
September 18th, 2004 at 5:06 pm
i kinda like his posts
September 18th, 2004 at 7:18 pm
It’s really frightening the way the business world is getting hold of childrens’ minds. Our son isn’t very interested in computers, so far, but he loves television. We let him watch for a couple of hours a day and even that is a problem. It seems that every show is geared towards sales, and the advertisements are truly pernicious. But what can you do?
Parent -
September 21st, 2004 at 12:50 pm
What can you do? Buy a few books! If you must park your son in front of the TV, buy a few movies he really likes on tape or dvd and let him watch that if you’re worried about ads.
September 21st, 2004 at 10:21 pm
I’m a junior in high school and we have ads for products and programs from McDonalds and other companies posted all over the bulletin boards at school. So many sponsors you can’t even keep track of them anymore.
Most school hand-outs have ads on them and websites for products! Even our own TEXT BOOKS have a few pages in the front of web advertisements. Not to mention quite a bit of the school computer software too.
Neopets isn’t too bad, seeing as the site is free and entertaining and you can mostly ignore the ads, and they need to pay for it somehow… But putting ads in something you already have to pay for, like text books, is ridiculous.
September 21st, 2004 at 10:45 pm
That’s completely preposterous.
September 22nd, 2004 at 3:07 am
I am an avid neopets player and high school student. I see nothing wrong with sponsor games.
I never even play those games or buy the merchandise advertised. All I want to do is have fun and play neopets. Brainwashing is a tad too strong a word to use. Influential is better. This article comes across to me as an assumption that children are feeble enough to buy a product they see on neopets. Even the five year olds that play neopets that my sister interacts with at camp know better. They see that this is just some way to get them to buy a product.
Check your facts with actual neopets players and rewrite this article. I will be checking in.
Signed,
A Neopets Player
September 22nd, 2004 at 9:45 pm
I don’t agree with the implication that a child has no brain power to defy an add the size of a thumb on a neopets site. I myself play neopets, and know far too many people that do too. Advertising has become quite nasty in the past 10 years, and the internet seems to be one of it’s targetted dimensions, but sites like neopets do not include pop ups or any super-over-powering and influential influentlail adds that would drive a 7 year old to threaten his/her parents if they don’t buy him/her that product.
Although I agree that children should be supervized once they enter the net, I disagree with tagetting neopets.com, it’s a rather weak example while pinning it against other advertising monsters.
Also, in the consumer culture we’re living in, is up to the parents to train their children into reacting to measures of purchasing, like a birthday or christmas, as adds will always be present no matter how many precautions they take. Remember, a child is your responsibility and corporations just simply do not care about anything else than profits.
~A (sora65)