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"negative externality".. "It's cognitive pollution".. "imposing those cognitive loads on everyone else", "life experience is degraded by seeing a billboard" I'

"negative externality".. "It's cognitive pollution".. "imposing those cognitive loads on everyone else", "life experience is degraded by seeing a billboard" I'm seeing some BS here..a lot of hyperbolic, pseudo-psychology BS.

voltagex_ 11y ago
I guess, but I'd love to see some research into the effects of advertising. I know that some advertising on the web would create barriers to accessibility: http://webaim.org/articles/evaluatingcognitive/#focus http://webaim.org/articles/evaluatingcognitive/#focus
Spivak 11y ago
I like the term "cognitive pollution" only as a metaphor but the rest is just economics. A negative externality is when one does something which imposes a cost or an 'economic bad' on someone else who is not being compensated for it. The noise from the neighbor who mows his lawn at 7:00 on a Sunday morning is a negative externality. The neighbors lives are slightly worse off because their sleep, which was interrupted, has value to them. When determining what should be done about this there are only a few ways this could go, the lawn-mower compensates his neighbors for the noise, the neighbors compensate the lawn-mower to mow his lawn at some other time, or the homeowner's association compels the lawn-mower to stop. But there's at least one solution with a problem. If the neighbors pay the lawn-mower to not mow his lawn then we've created a situation where someone can be paid for doing something annoying to others and then demanding compensation to stop. Hopefully you've seen how this metaphor translates to advertising, and specifically for the practice of paying to remove advertising. Based on the numbers of users of various ad blockers there are a huge amount of people who find ads in general as a negative externality. Although you might argue that they're being compensated on websites by receiving some desirable content in return this doesn't translate to billboards where the annoyed viewer is gaining no other value.

voltagex_ 11y ago

I guess, but I'd love to see some research into the effects of advertising. I know that some advertising on the web would create barriers to accessibility: http://webaim.org/articles/evaluatingcognitive/#focus http://webaim.org/articles/evaluatingcognitive/#focus

Spivak 11y ago

I like the term "cognitive pollution" only as a metaphor but the rest is just economics. A negative externality is when one does something which imposes a cost or an 'economic bad' on someone else who is not being compensated for it. The noise from the neighbor who mows his lawn at 7:00 on a Sunday morning is a negative externality. The neighbors lives are slightly worse off because their sleep, which was interrupted, has value to them. When determining what should be done about this there are only a few ways this could go, the lawn-mower compensates his neighbors for the noise, the neighbors compensate the lawn-mower to mow his lawn at some other time, or the homeowner's association compels the lawn-mower to stop. But there's at least one solution with a problem. If the neighbors pay the lawn-mower to not mow his lawn then we've created a situation where someone can be paid for doing something annoying to others and then demanding compensation to stop. Hopefully you've seen how this metaphor translates to advertising, and specifically for the practice of paying to remove advertising. Based on the numbers of users of various ad blockers there are a huge amount of people who find ads in general as a negative externality. Although you might argue that they're being compensated on websites by receiving some desirable content in return this doesn't translate to billboards where the annoyed viewer is gaining no other value.