THE JONES SYNDROME

By Miles Patrick Yohnke © 2011

Children within adult faces. Recently, as I was cycling to my destination I passed this park. As I went by I heard this male voice. A man was training his young dog. With a clear, strong, yet tender voice, he was teaching his dog to sit and the dog did. With his leash on they walked a few steps and repeated the process. He praised his dog and I could see that the dog was very happy.

The man was teaching the dog that it could be more. He taught the dog focus, discipline, and structure. What really struck me was that, he took the time. HE TOOK THE TIME. As I continued along my journey I reflected on what I had witnessed. Thinking how he took the time. He was there. He was getting the most out of that dog. How lucky that dog was.

How often do we take time to teach our own children? We constantly hear, "I'm so busy, I feel like I'm always running, I'm stressed." Our modern world is so inundated with marketing and advertising that has one goal and one goal only. That is to make a product so attractive that the consumer feels a need or desire to possess it in order to feel fulfilled or popular.

Children and teens need to understand the powerful attraction that marketing can create. They have to learn to differentiate between what they truly need and what they want. We need to teach our children that advertising exists so people can make money. And because of that, advertisers use powerful methods to convince consumers to buy their products. We need to teach our children how media need paid advertising to stay on the air or to continue publishing. 

We need to show how advertising can make people want something even if they don't really need it. We should discuss this when we or our loved ones are confronted by advertising whether on television, radio, in newspapers, magazines, or billboards.

We should discuss how advertising tries to make you feel better about yourself if you buy a certain product, or convince you that other people will like you better or think you're "cool". We should explain that shopping should not be seen as a fun pastime, but rather something people do to buy items they need. Explain the differences between need and want.

Help your children observe how many times a day families are exposed to advertising. For example, there are ads on the sides of buses, in arenas, on radio and television, on billboards, at the movies and on the Internet. That when a television station or radio station tells you to tweak them or post to their Facebook site, that they are only doing so to create 'traffic hits' to their own site to help increase their revenue for future ads from other companies. Show that advertising tries to create an image of what a person should be or should look like, yet often this image does not reflect reality.

Here is the alarming thing. Do we know the difference? We go back to "I'm so busy, I feel like I'm always running, I'm stressed." Most couples both work full-time these days (divorce rate is soaring to an all-time high; tag-team parenting). They are overwhelmed. Overwhelmed for the most part to pay their mortgage. Pay for the 'stuff' in their house. Pay for their vehicles. Pay for their clothes (look popular). For the most part, We don't understand the values underlined. We are just children within adult faces!

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Here Globally recognized and award-nominated engineer, producer, writer, poet and founder and C.E.O. of 5 Star Productions, Miles Patrick Yohnke brings many years of experience to the music industry; including many awards in sales and marketing. If you are looking at developing your career, Yohnke offers consulting in person, by phone or via email. For more info, please contact him miles@5-starproductions.com.