Advertising as a source of dissatisfaction: cross-national evidence(voxeu.org)
voxeu.org
Advertising as a source of dissatisfaction: cross-national evidence
https://voxeu.org/article/advertising-major-source-human-dissatisfaction
523 コメント
To me, it is worrying how much human effort we're investing into advertising as a whole. The top minds of our generations, backed by billions of dollars in funding, are working on increasingly manipulative ways to capture people's attention and use it to generate profit.
We're constantly getting better at it; who knows what path this will lead us down. I suspect it might not be the one we had wished for.
We're constantly getting better at it; who knows what path this will lead us down. I suspect it might not be the one we had wished for.
What can I say
"Advertising has us chasing cars and clothes, working jobs we hate so we can buy shit we don't need. We're the middle children of history, man. No purpose or place. We have no Great War. No Great Depression. Our great war is a spiritual war. Our great depression is our lives. We've all been raised on television to believe that one day we'd all be millionaires, and movie gods, and rock stars, but we won't."
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Fight_Club_(film)
"Advertising has us chasing cars and clothes, working jobs we hate so we can buy shit we don't need. We're the middle children of history, man. No purpose or place. We have no Great War. No Great Depression. Our great war is a spiritual war. Our great depression is our lives. We've all been raised on television to believe that one day we'd all be millionaires, and movie gods, and rock stars, but we won't."
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Fight_Club_(film)
I think they are missing the biggest issue with advertising, which is it incentivizes businesses to create things for the sole purpose of drawing their attention to the advertising. Truth is less important than shock value. Utility less important than appearance of utility. Extremist rhetoric gathers more eyeballs than moderate views. Advertising's biggest negative effects are in how it manipulates people into manipulating people's attention.
Isn't this what you would expect? Advertising fundamentally is trying to convince you that you need something. If you're perfectly happy with your current situation then what else would you need? So the advertising has to convince you that you're not happy but that there is a product that you can buy that will increase your happiness.
You're basically being negged by advertisers.
You're basically being negged by advertisers.
The biggest offender in my opinion is not the web, where you can install ad blockers and avoid certain websites, but television, where you're forced to sit through something before you can get to the content you're trying to watch.
I find it especially offensive on paid services like Hulu. I'm paying for the thing, just let me watch it!
It's also pretty bad for F2P mobile games, although the solution there is easy (play different games).
I actually don't mind advertisements in big cities or on billboards, sort of adds to the flashiness factor in some cases. Though if I lived in a more concentrated metro area I might feel differently.
I find it especially offensive on paid services like Hulu. I'm paying for the thing, just let me watch it!
It's also pretty bad for F2P mobile games, although the solution there is easy (play different games).
I actually don't mind advertisements in big cities or on billboards, sort of adds to the flashiness factor in some cases. Though if I lived in a more concentrated metro area I might feel differently.
Doubling of advertising expidenture (Which is a massive, sea change) would apparently make people 3% less happy. So basically it has a negligible impact on happiness even if this analysis is true.
I highly doubt it is true though. It's a purely correlational study, that says from 1980-2011, advertising increased and people in general got 3% less happy. They say they accounted for GDP when doing their regression, but so many other things affect advertising spend as a whole that wouldn't show there. More globalization coming to a country (as markets open up and global firms find advertising worth their while), changes in industry make-up, political election cycles becoming more heated, internet connectivity (which would be huge in the time period they studied, and would greatly impact ad spend numbers with it), etc.
It is really, really hard to actually change people's opinions with advertising. The closest you can do is convert their existing opinions into actions. There is a ton of good academic literature on this - here's a good primer: https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https:/...
I highly doubt it is true though. It's a purely correlational study, that says from 1980-2011, advertising increased and people in general got 3% less happy. They say they accounted for GDP when doing their regression, but so many other things affect advertising spend as a whole that wouldn't show there. More globalization coming to a country (as markets open up and global firms find advertising worth their while), changes in industry make-up, political election cycles becoming more heated, internet connectivity (which would be huge in the time period they studied, and would greatly impact ad spend numbers with it), etc.
It is really, really hard to actually change people's opinions with advertising. The closest you can do is convert their existing opinions into actions. There is a ton of good academic literature on this - here's a good primer: https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https:/...
Advertising is necessary to stave off the greatest threat against Western civilization: https://potterswealdotcom.files.wordpress.com/2015/07/fullsi...
I view advertising as a form of pollution. In many cases, it erodes the human experience. It is abusive to families with children creating strife where there was none. I spend a lot of time managing expectations and sharing philosophical ideas, like "less is more". I don't mind teaching my children, but I don't like feeling people are trying to take advantage of us all the time. I explain it to them as if it is a game we're all playing, "if you keep your money you don't have to work forever." Another fun game I'd like to suggest is looking at an index fund calculator and see how much money you'd have if somebody had invested 1K (or $50 a month) in your name on your birthday. I use this as a means of giving them a plan; nobody had ever done it with me growing up, hopefully my kids are clued in on how to earn financial freedom. Now, I just hope my advice withstands the test of time.
One of the nicest things about been a techie is I rarely see/hear adverts.
I don’t listen to the radio (programming podcasts and music), watch broadcast tv (streaming and..other sources), ublock origin deals with the web.
So I see maybe a one or two per day (billboards near work).
I’m reminded how nice that is every time I touch a windows work PC that isn’t mine (I run fedora on a box I built myself), at least everyone is running ublock origin now after I suggested it.
I don’t listen to the radio (programming podcasts and music), watch broadcast tv (streaming and..other sources), ublock origin deals with the web.
So I see maybe a one or two per day (billboards near work).
I’m reminded how nice that is every time I touch a windows work PC that isn’t mine (I run fedora on a box I built myself), at least everyone is running ublock origin now after I suggested it.
I get that advertising is a necessary evil but I've become numb to accepting any form of advertisements due to it being abused.
Ad block + refuse to watch pretty much anything on TV. Life is too short to lose +-10% of my leisure time being brainwashed over a product I don't care about
Ad block + refuse to watch pretty much anything on TV. Life is too short to lose +-10% of my leisure time being brainwashed over a product I don't care about
There is a very underrated old movie called Roger Dodger, where the main character is an advertising executive. He said something to the effect that his job was to convince people that their lives were shit. Only after you convince them that their lives are shit you can then convince them that the new product is the very thing they need to fix their lives.
Advertisers are also the "moral police" and strong arm media companies into compounding the short and long term toxic effects of their original message.
The financial industry was huge (it reached 8% of US GDP, and 40% of corporate profits [1]), sucked up many bright students, and made many of its practitioners rich, while arguably not creating much value.
It really seems to me that the same holds, more and more, for advertisement (Google, Facebook). (Well, banks created the ATM, as Volcker famously remarked, and Google a better search engine, so there's that.)
[1] https://www.fa-mag.com/news/how-finance-took-over-the-econom...
It really seems to me that the same holds, more and more, for advertisement (Google, Facebook). (Well, banks created the ATM, as Volcker famously remarked, and Google a better search engine, so there's that.)
[1] https://www.fa-mag.com/news/how-finance-took-over-the-econom...
I view any and all non-obiective advertising as literally evil. There is absolutely no good reason for advertising to exist it's current state.
Are there any nations or states which outlaw or heavily regulate advertising? I've heard some governments outlaw advertising to children.
Are there any nations or states which outlaw or heavily regulate advertising? I've heard some governments outlaw advertising to children.
When I lived in London, I often wondered what it would be like if the adverts that covered the underground and streets were replaced by pictures drawn by children.
This article misses by far the number one benefit of advertising: it makes products and services cheaper.
That notion obviously applies to the plethora of "free" (free in quotes because I am not trying to dodge the fact that you are always paying something) websites which everyone frequents, but goes beyond that as well.
There's a comment on here complaining about how Hulu shows ads despite the fact that they are paying for the service. Well, you can pay more and not see those ads, but you have made a conscious decision to pay less for the service, so you get to pay some of your attention instead.
Back to the article -- it claims that "a hypothetical doubling of advertising expenditure would result in a 3% drop in life satisfaction." What I would like to see is some analysis of how much life satisfaction is earned back if all relevant products become proportionately cheaper. Then we would be in position to figure out what the sweet spot for society is using a price:advertising ratio as a slider.
That would be very interesting and result in a more productive conversation.
That notion obviously applies to the plethora of "free" (free in quotes because I am not trying to dodge the fact that you are always paying something) websites which everyone frequents, but goes beyond that as well.
There's a comment on here complaining about how Hulu shows ads despite the fact that they are paying for the service. Well, you can pay more and not see those ads, but you have made a conscious decision to pay less for the service, so you get to pay some of your attention instead.
Back to the article -- it claims that "a hypothetical doubling of advertising expenditure would result in a 3% drop in life satisfaction." What I would like to see is some analysis of how much life satisfaction is earned back if all relevant products become proportionately cheaper. Then we would be in position to figure out what the sweet spot for society is using a price:advertising ratio as a slider.
That would be very interesting and result in a more productive conversation.
Root of the problem is measuing everything in GDP.Natural resources such as rivers and oceans, topsoil and forests, the ozone layer and the atmosphere, are seen as essentially valueless—unless, of course, they are exploited and converted into revenue.
Gdp measures mainly market transactions. it ignores social costs, environmental impacts and income inequality. Seen through such a lens, the most economically productive people are cancer patients in the midst of getting a divorce. healthy people in happy marriages, in contrast, are economically invisible, and all the more so if they cook at home, walk to work, grow food in a home garden, and don’t smoke
I assume brand advertising to be specific is the real culprit here. As a huge fan of Mad Men some of Don Draper's (main character) quotes are illuminatung here.
"Advertising is based on one thing, happiness. And you know what happiness is? Happiness is the smell of a new car. It's freedom from fear. It's a billboard on the side of the road that screams reassurance that whatever you are doing is okay. You are okay."
"Advertising is based on one thing, happiness. And you know what happiness is? Happiness is the smell of a new car. It's freedom from fear. It's a billboard on the side of the road that screams reassurance that whatever you are doing is okay. You are okay."
Imagine having a person constantly walking too-close next to you, picking just the wrong time to JUMP IN FRONT OF YOU before every little thing you try to do, and shouting in your face and refusing to go away until they can finish what they were going to say. This is what modern advertising does, for everything! It isn’t exactly surprising that this could be a net negative for pretty much everyone.
my kids only watch netflix and shows/movies we buy on iTunes
so basically they see virtually no ads, SO unlike my experience growing up watching network TV where every 12 minutes there was a series of 5 or 6 30-second ads
so basically they see virtually no ads, SO unlike my experience growing up watching network TV where every 12 minutes there was a series of 5 or 6 30-second ads
I think there's (at least) another factor not investigated here - advertising as a stress inducing, unnecessary noise in life.
People are trying to bombard you, through every possible avenue, with advertising. They want your eyes and your mind and they won't waste a second or a flat surface when trying to get at them.
I find it abusive and exhausting.
People are trying to bombard you, through every possible avenue, with advertising. They want your eyes and your mind and they won't waste a second or a flat surface when trying to get at them.
I find it abusive and exhausting.
Advertising is inherently predatory. I'm well aware of the arguments like "we're providing customers with useful information about things they might like to buy," but that's a lie. It's using propaganda and persuasion techniques that were discovered in the early 20th century and have been increasingly perfected. And that's just the first order effect. The higher order effects of advertising are even more pernicious. Advertising has destroyed far more lives than guns ever have. That's not hyperbole, the opioid epidemic is the result of predatory advertising and lobbying by pharmaceutical companies such as Purdue Pharma.
I don't see a link or reference to it, but I guess this is a slightly condensed version of https://andrewoswald.com/docs/AdvertisingMicheletal2019Easte...
Tax ads!
Added: actually it's in the reference list as:
> Michel C, M Sovinsky, E Proto, A J Oswald (forthcoming), "Advertising as a Major Source of Human Dissatisfaction: Cross-National Evidence on One Million Europeans", to be published in 2019 in a volume in honor of Richard Easterlin.
Tax ads!
Added: actually it's in the reference list as:
> Michel C, M Sovinsky, E Proto, A J Oswald (forthcoming), "Advertising as a Major Source of Human Dissatisfaction: Cross-National Evidence on One Million Europeans", to be published in 2019 in a volume in honor of Richard Easterlin.
Real luxury is being able to pay for the content you want, to watch how and when you want, without subsidizing the experience with attention-sucking ads. I refuse to hook up our cable box for this reason.
Big Advertising is a root cause not only for mass mental dissatisfaction, but also mass health epidemics (i.e. obesity in the US), and ecological destruction/climate change.
Why would people buy anything if they are content?
Combine this with the need for constant growth encoded in management incentives and the push to remove content from everyone is pretty powerful.
Combine this with the need for constant growth encoded in management incentives and the push to remove content from everyone is pretty powerful.
I remember developing an App. And then we have talked about, how can we be seen. And then all my grudges on advertising disappeared. Thank god, that it exists.
This URL was blocked by a content blocker. Hm! https://outline.com/KrV9Pw
I really want a study to show what percentage of online ads are downright deceptive (or at least highly misleading). I suspect it's well over 60-70%.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DnPmg0R1M04
From the video description -
"The story of the relationship between Sigmund Freud and his American nephew, Edward Bernays. Bernays invented the public relations profession in the 1920s and was the first person to take Freud's ideas to manipulate the masses. He showed American corporations how they could make people want things they didn't need by systematically linking mass-produced goods to their unconscious desires.
Bernays was one of the main architects of the modern techniques of mass-consumer persuasion, using every trick in the book, from celebrity endorsement and outrageous PR stunts, to eroticising the motorcar.
His most notorious coup was breaking the taboo on women smoking by persuading them that cigarettes were a symbol of independence and freedom. But Bernays was convinced that this was more than just a way of selling consumer goods. It was a new political idea of how to control the masses. By satisfying the inner irrational desires that his uncle had identified, people could be made happy and thus docile.
It was the start of the all-consuming self which has come to dominate today's world."