Marriage Campaign on Social Networking Sites

Due to the recent decline in marriage among people between the ages of 18-30, the government has started a $5 million campaign to highlight the benefits of marriage. The advertisements are going to be on Facebook, MySpace, and YouTube within the next month. Questions are being raised as to whether the government should spend money on encouraging young people to get married.

I find it interesting that this ad campaign is going to be on Facebook and MySpace. This is the perfect place to target younger people and possibly influence them to get married but I'm not sure it will persuade them. If the ads are done in the right way, so that it doesn't look like an authority figure is telling them what to do, they might be effective. The fact that the government is reaching people through these social networking sites is kind of scary however. Facebook is a place where people stay in contact with their friends, but now it is turning into a place to display government propaganda. The government knows how seriously people take these sites and how frequently they are visited. By placing ads on the Internet, the government is really infiltrating the lives of young people in new and creative ways, but again, it's kind of scary to think that Facebook will now be host to government ads. I'm not sure whether this is already happening on Facebook, but now that I'm aware of it it is going to be interesting to analyze the new ads and see if they can persuade me to get married someday.