“Advertisers know how our brains are wired. They know that the path to the emotional brain is faster than the path to your logical thinking brain,” says Erin Walsh, MediaWise program coordinator at the National Media and Family Institute. Advertising was no longer a beneficial way to promote products, but today it seems to have a more negative influence on society, especially children. Children are easily influenced by everything around them and are often attacked by advertisers. In fact, American children watch approximately 40,000 hours of television commercials per year. (See “Figure 1” on page four) (YOUR) By the time children graduate from high school, they will have watched approximately 600,000 hours of television! Teenagers are always trying to feel popular, to look their best, to act “cool and hip”. " things, but when kids see these ads, they don't even think about what the product actually is or how it works. They only focus on whether or not it will reinforce the image that others see them, or how popular they will become if they own a given product, rather than thinking about it logically Advertising uses three aspects to persuade consumers to buy their products and they mainly influence children Advertisers. can expose children to these negative media in three negative ways: humor and catchy slogans, celebrities, and self-image “When advertising makes you smile or laugh, your brain chemistry changes to support your memory. "It associates happiness and good feelings with the brand," says Doug Gentile, who runs a media research lab at Iowa State University in Ames. not designed to reach the preferred medium of paper...... attract children to advertisements, which will harm the children and not themselves. These ways of promoting advertising through humor and catchy slogans, celebrities and self-image, encourage negative thoughts. Children should not be bombarded with this type of advertising, and advertisers need to clean up their act. Advertisements are not necessarily false, but they should give simple details, but while waiting for change, society needs to become media literate and learn to read between the lines of advertisements. Until then, children will continue to be negatively influenced by these advertisements. Works Cited Markarian, Margie. “Advertising on the brain.” Current Health October 1, 2009: 22-25. Gale Group. Internet. March 3, 2011. Markarian, Margie. “YOUR MIND How to outsmart the power of advertising.” Current Health November 2, 2009. Gale Group. Internet. March 4. 2011.