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The interruptive nature of ads has had me swearing at them since I was old enough to speak. Advertising has been compromising things I enjoy for literally my e

The interruptive nature of ads has had me swearing at them since I was old enough to speak. Advertising has been compromising things I enjoy for literally my entire life. It's unnatural and serves no valid purpose, but somehow "we" as a society accept it. I wonder about the broad-scale psychological expense to humans to continuously endure the cognitive load of advertisement inundation. I feel like it's like a psychological tax on humanity, literally dampening our potential. If you consider that people like Steve Jobs wore the same thing every day to have "one less decision to make", you can easily gather how important every "clock cycle" of your brain is valuable when you're operating at a high level of functionality. People close their eyes to concentrate further, or turn down the radio during difficult driving conditions -- these are all efforts to reduce sensory input. Meanwhile, advertising is a persistent sensory load. Along these lines, in the study "The Economic and Cognitive Costs of Annoying Display Advertisements"[0], which was focused around website advertising, one conclusion was: "in the presence of annoying ads, people were less accurate on questions pertaining to what they had read". This was just something I quickly found and I imagine there are many other studies which have similar conclusions. [0] http://dangoldstein.com/papers/goldstein_suri_mcafee_ekstrand-abueg_diaz_economic_cognitive_annoying_ads_JMR_2014.pdf http://dangoldstein.com/papers/goldstein_suri_mcafee_ekstran...

esotericn 8y ago
Indeed. I get so, so angry when I think about this for very long. It's frustrating to even have to explain it - it's just so _obvious_ that it's a bad thing. No-one would find it acceptable if they were arbitrarily kicked lightly in the shins, constantly, as they walked down the street. Even if it were monetized. Even if there were no scars, no obvious "permanent damage". Somehow, the mental assault of advertising is seen differently.
jbob2000 8y ago
To highlight just how cognitively dissonant society is with ads - we ban smartphones while driving because it's distracting, but the giant TV screen billboard flashing things at me on the highway is totally OK. Not only are "we" OK with advertising stealing your mental bandwidth, we're also OK with you endangering the lives of everyone around you while it gets stolen!
gesman 8y ago
>> but somehow "we" as a society accept it. To be more precise - "we" consists of 2 groups: ones who control (smaller) and second who is being controlled. For the first group - ads are source of revenue and wealth. They call the shots. For the second group - majority ... they mostly hate it - but it doesn't matter, no one ask them. They have no say over this. They are being used and sold to and profited from.
- isostatic 8y ago
  That first group still get adverts though from other members of the first group. Advertising is a lose-lose situation for everyone, just that some lose more than others.
cr0sh 8y ago
You can mitigate most of it - not all, but quite a large fraction. First off, ad-block your browser as much as you can; if you want to really nuke things, go with something like a https://pi-hole.net/ https://pi-hole.net/ Secondly - get rid of cable television, and stop listening to Clear Channel radio (or any radio for that matter). Avoid ad-driven streaming services (video or audio). In fact, you might cut them out entirely. Instead, read and/or create stuff to fill your free time. Or write, or learn, or whatever. Anything except being a complete consumer. Stop going to brick-and-mortar chain stores or restaurants; instead, seek out independent places for similar offerings. Note that these places will not be "ad free" - they are businesses, and as such they must do some amount of marketing. But it will be a local thing only, and much more low-key at that. For the remainder of stuff, use online shopping. Of course, if you use Amazon, Ebay, Ali Express, etc - there is going to be a level of advertising there. You might be able to block some of it, but not all - do what you can to lighten the load. Doing all of that leaves only billboards and signage, and of course incidental advertising (overhearing a radio, seeing a TV or something at a friend's house, etc). But if you do everything else, and maybe a few other minor things, you can eliminate almost all of it. I can think of a potential way you could also eliminate the signage and other forms of passive and incidental advertising, but you'd be a pariah if you tried it. But potentially it could work (and quite possibly be done extremely well, almost to the point where such advertising would "disappear" from your otherwise normal daily life).
- amatecha 8y ago
  Ah yeah, I do everything you've mentioned! :) In fact, typically if an ad interrupts some website or video (including modal popups asking me to "sign up for the newsletter!"), I just close the page. I don't care, there's little content worth me subjecting myself to that abuse. I hope their analytics catch the "bounces" of someone leaving the site at the moment the ads showed up. That might be a bit of an extreme view, but I'm just sick of it, especially as someone who has been using the net since ~1992 and seen it become just completely overridden by non-content.
sizzle 8y ago
"cognitive load of advertisement inundation" Well said, you articulated my thoughts exactly. I wish we could vote on banning public advertising eyesores. With TV or radio I simply choose not to view or listen, but being bombarded with unwanted ads on my walk or commute is insidiously brainwashing the public without recourse.

esotericn 8y ago

Indeed. I get so, so angry when I think about this for very long. It's frustrating to even have to explain it - it's just so _obvious_ that it's a bad thing. No-one would find it acceptable if they were arbitrarily kicked lightly in the shins, constantly, as they walked down the street. Even if it were monetized. Even if there were no scars, no obvious "permanent damage". Somehow, the mental assault of advertising is seen differently.

jbob2000 8y ago

To highlight just how cognitively dissonant society is with ads - we ban smartphones while driving because it's distracting, but the giant TV screen billboard flashing things at me on the highway is totally OK. Not only are "we" OK with advertising stealing your mental bandwidth, we're also OK with you endangering the lives of everyone around you while it gets stolen!

gesman 8y ago

>> but somehow "we" as a society accept it. To be more precise - "we" consists of 2 groups: ones who control (smaller) and second who is being controlled. For the first group - ads are source of revenue and wealth. They call the shots. For the second group - majority ... they mostly hate it - but it doesn't matter, no one ask them. They have no say over this. They are being used and sold to and profited from.

isostatic 8y ago
That first group still get adverts though from other members of the first group. Advertising is a lose-lose situation for everyone, just that some lose more than others.

cr0sh 8y ago

You can mitigate most of it - not all, but quite a large fraction. First off, ad-block your browser as much as you can; if you want to really nuke things, go with something like a https://pi-hole.net/ https://pi-hole.net/ Secondly - get rid of cable television, and stop listening to Clear Channel radio (or any radio for that matter). Avoid ad-driven streaming services (video or audio). In fact, you might cut them out entirely. Instead, read and/or create stuff to fill your free time. Or write, or learn, or whatever. Anything except being a complete consumer. Stop going to brick-and-mortar chain stores or restaurants; instead, seek out independent places for similar offerings. Note that these places will not be "ad free" - they are businesses, and as such they must do some amount of marketing. But it will be a local thing only, and much more low-key at that. For the remainder of stuff, use online shopping. Of course, if you use Amazon, Ebay, Ali Express, etc - there is going to be a level of advertising there. You might be able to block some of it, but not all - do what you can to lighten the load. Doing all of that leaves only billboards and signage, and of course incidental advertising (overhearing a radio, seeing a TV or something at a friend's house, etc). But if you do everything else, and maybe a few other minor things, you can eliminate almost all of it. I can think of a potential way you could also eliminate the signage and other forms of passive and incidental advertising, but you'd be a pariah if you tried it. But potentially it could work (and quite possibly be done extremely well, almost to the point where such advertising would "disappear" from your otherwise normal daily life).

amatecha 8y ago
Ah yeah, I do everything you've mentioned! :) In fact, typically if an ad interrupts some website or video (including modal popups asking me to "sign up for the newsletter!"), I just close the page. I don't care, there's little content worth me subjecting myself to that abuse. I hope their analytics catch the "bounces" of someone leaving the site at the moment the ads showed up. That might be a bit of an extreme view, but I'm just sick of it, especially as someone who has been using the net since ~1992 and seen it become just completely overridden by non-content.

sizzle 8y ago

"cognitive load of advertisement inundation" Well said, you articulated my thoughts exactly. I wish we could vote on banning public advertising eyesores. With TV or radio I simply choose not to view or listen, but being bombarded with unwanted ads on my walk or commute is insidiously brainwashing the public without recourse.