YOU may have noticed ads about newly launched ice creams or pizza parlours that offer scrumptious feast with all the glorious looking food they have. You stop to have a treat with your family or friends but what you get is not what you came for! The pizza doesn’t look like anything they showed in the ad.

Advertisements not only persuade children but also adults to buy almost everything advertised.

Today we are going to explore a media literacy website ‘Don’t buy it’ that encourages users to think critically about media and become a smart consumer.

You can choose from the four main categories on the homepage which are “Advertising tricks” where you can learn about ‘food advertising tricks’, ‘What’s in an ad’, and ‘Become an ad detective’ or you can even ‘Create your own ads’, etc. In “Buying smart”, you can ask yourself various questions about the commercials, participate in an activity in “What’s in a shopping bag”, and play a game on “Is the price right?” by supposedly buying a product.

While you can “Go behind the scenes” of TV, music and magazines “In your entertainment”; you can read about teen heroes, and get involved in activities, and learn more about the clever tactics ads play on us. For instance, did you know there are food stylists? Yes, there are food stylists, in other words make-up artists whose job is to make the food you see in advertisements look great. But when you find out how they do it, you just might lose your appetite.

So kids, the activities on the site are designed to provide you with some of the skills and knowledge needed to question, analyse, interpret and evaluate media messages which otherwise blind you to buy the stuff. You will sure become a wise shopper the next time you go out with your mum to the grocery store.

The website is created by the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS ) which is a non-profit organisation. n http://pbskids.org/dontbuyit/