Nowadays consumers are faced with the advertisements from competing companies. To what extent do you agree or disagree that consumers are influenced by advertisements? What measures should be taken to protect consumers ?

　　Give reasons for your answer and include any relevant examples from your knowledge or experience?

　　The extent to which people are influenced by advertisements can be measured in terms of the high sales of popular consumer goods, many of them being unnecessary or completely useless. Mainly through the media, advertisements on products and services are able to penetrate the public mind with half truth and half lying. In many cases, consumers are becoming so greedy that they are not only buying things they really do not need but also spending the money they do not have.

　　Although advertising gives people a chance as consumers, actually most advertisements tend to cause them to desire for something worthless. Under such circumstances, it is easy to change people's need into greed. So much so, they are constantly encouraged to want things--want this and want that. This human behavior is haunted by the media from all fronts: on radio, on television, and online, not to mention printed circulations such as newspapers and magazines. Obviously, a great number of "impulsive" buyers are persuaded under the illusion that new products or services could make a difference in their lives. Despite all the benefits of the free market economy, the effects of unreliable advertising are particularly negative in that the power of advertising does not reflect the real needs of the society in which products and services are sold.

　　Worse still, many consumers are convinced to waste money they do not have. Surrounded by advertisements, people are too unwise to perform a balanced act between income and expenditure. Increasingly, what seems to be good for economy begins to backfire because advertising is misleading consumers deeply into commercial debts which they probably could not afford to pay in due time. Thus, instead of improving people's lives, advertising may be considered as a "necessary evil" in modern time. Furthermore, as manufacturing and service companies are competing to have a larger share of the market, it is next to impossible to expect the media to reduce the amount of dishonest advertising. Besides, when it comes to making money, companies and the media are in the same religion.

　　After all, greed being a human instinct, consumers have only themselves to blame for their foolishness toward advertisements. Since outlawing commercial advertising is out of the question, people should educate themselves to be more prudent in buying and spending behaviors. As for consumers, what better measures can be taken to protect themselves other than self-control? (Essay by Jeenn Lee Hsieh)