
Researchers find inverse correlation between advertising and life satisfaction - jrepinc
https://hbr.org/2020/01/advertising-makes-us-unhappy
======
xtracto
This reminds me of an anecdote a friend told me: This friend dedicates his
time in going to very rural areas/towns here in Mexico to implement government
programs.

At some point in the past he got to a town were the cantina had just gotten
the only TV in town... apparently people in the town were generally happy, and
they had everything they needed... so in their view they were not poor.

But once they started watching TV, they started seeing the Nikes, the fridges,
the trips to Europe and all that "stuff" that they couldn't get... and there
they started to ask why couldnt they get all that and thus started feeling
poor.

Amazing what advertising can do for perceived "needs"

~~~
throwawaymath
That raises profound and fascinating philosophical questions about the nature
of knowledge and happiness. I wonder how many of those people would choose to
forego the knowledge of what they don't have if it meant they would be happy
again. On the other hand, is that even a meaningful question to ask, given
it's not possible?

Which of course leads to the ethical question: is it right for people to live
in ignorance if it makes them happy, it it's not their choice? Is it
fundamentally better for people to be happy rather than aware of massive
inequality (up to and including significant poverty)? How much would be
appropriate to hide, for how much additional happiness? Is it better in the
long run for some to be unhappy if it brings attention to inequality?

I don't have any of those answers, but they're interesting and challenging
questions.

~~~
Erlich_Bachman
> is it right for people to live in ignorance if it makes them happy, it it's
> not their choice?

I wouldn't pretend to answer if it is "right" (what does it even mean), but a
lot of people already do live in ignorance. Maybe not in the straight way of
ignorance of not being able to recollect some information, but certainly in
terms of assigning certain labels and judgements to it. So many people watch a
TV with someone having a great time and think/feel to themselves things like
"they stole the money somehow to get there", "they had rich parents", "they
are not happy anyway", "life is unfair, they got their riches through
unfairness", "money is the root of all evil", "money brings unhappiness",
"it's not their real life, just some fake instagram story" etc.

~~~
6510
We all live in ignorance. Our most epic skill is to work with incomplete
information. We use to praise people for being able to do arithmetic in their
head or memorize large amounts of information. The computers showed that those
abilities are only challenging because we lack the "design" for it.

Advertisement, like Instagram or facebook is tailored to give us the
impressions the Joneses are doing much better for themselves. Some of this is
true, some is designed to tap into this emotion.

I actually woke up 30 min ago iterating over all the things I didn't get in
life that most other people had in abundance. It's not the first time I
pondered that. After the excuses you mention above I always come back to a
thought I had when I was I think 6 years old:

Other peoples lives, their expectations and their opinions are not really all
that interesting or important. They could be if they put minimal effort into
creating or evolving them. In stead they just copy this stuff from the next
guy without review - then dedicate their lives to living up to them.

I consider myself extremely privileged to escape from that formula. I've never
written it down before but happiness now starts with having oxygen to breath,
then comes having water to drink, food and a place to sleep share the 3rd
spot, 4th is having the mind set to think about something, 5th is a sense of
safety and the privilege to implement the thoughts, 6th is to be able to share
the thoughts and brainstorm, 7th is to have good people in my life, 8th is to
be able to pay my bills, 9th a decent set of garments etc

Having what other people are having is still on the list some place but to
have 1-4 makes for a fantastic life. 5 includes health and fitness. The rest
is really just nonsense by comparison.

What I'm trying to say is that satisfaction is overrated. You get only so much
of it, trying to optimize for it just diminishes it.

> the survey question “How satisfied are you with your life?”

Not satisfied? Well good! Time to accomplish something!

------
logjammin
I spent a lot of time in Vermont many years ago. I'd been there a little
while, blissfully unaware, before someone told me "yeah, they banned
billboards here in the sixties - you didn't notice?" I hadn't consciously
noticed, no, but I'd spent my time there until that comment driving around
stunned at how beautiful the place was. Now I knew the reason for that (well,
partial reason - billboards or not, it's a pretty part of the world,
especially in summer and fall).

I've thought a lot about that billboard ban ever since, and I'm convinced it
enabled a measure of calm in me.

I'm not sure how much I buy the study talked about in the OP's article -
spurious correlation strikes me as a possibility - but the intuition about
advertising is spot-on, I think. It'd cool if our societies had more ad-free
spaces.

~~~
andyjsong
This is why I take 280 instead of 101 when traveling to and from SF to South
Bay even though it's slightly longer.

~~~
creeble
Driving 280 in 1983 was one of the most significant events in getting me to
want to move here from Chicago.

I don't think it was the lack of billboards. But if there _were_ billboards,
it sure would feel different.

~~~
r00fus
I've always considered it the "rich man's freeway". No semis allowed, no
billboards, lots of either open-space preserves or mansions in the scenery.

------
infogulch
Advertising is an attack on your psyche. Its very existence is an assumption
that you should be dissatisfied with your life, and any advertising 'tricks'
(only showing happy, beautiful people using it etc, aka 95% of the content of
most advertisements) beyond purely factual statements about the product are
explicitly designed to hijack every possible unconscious bias in their target
audience to make them want it.

Sure, if you are concentrating and paying attention to the effect an ad has on
you and the tricks it's using to manipulate you, you can pretty easily analyze
and counteract the effect. But can you keep that up for every moment of every
day, ever vigilant resisting the imposition of another's will onto yours,
wriggling into your mind one tiny crack at a time?

Don't blink.

~~~
bluntfang
>you can pretty easily analyze and counteract the effect.

How? From my previous research I've found that it's one of those things that
even if you know you're being tricked, it still affects your decision making.

~~~
infogulch
I agree, but I've seen people insist otherwise. s/can pretty easily/may be
able to/ is more reasonable I guess, but the point of that sentence is that
even if you can perfectly counter it, can you do it perfectly forever?

------
tombert
I was the first person in my family to do the "cord cutting" thing, where I
only had an Amazon Prime and Netflix account, and a bunch of DVDs and Blu-Rays
(around 2012). People asked me why, and I said that I think it's dumb to pay
money for advertisements, and that I think ads are bad for you.

My brother-in-law is overall a smart guy, but he works at Taco Bell full-time,
making minimum wage in NYC (~$15/hour). He decided that he _needed_ the newest
iPhone 11, presumably because of some good marketing, spent over a grand
(through financing of course...ugh), and he'll spend the next year paying it
off.

I have nothing against the iPhone, I have one, but let's be honest here, do
most people even benefit from the "newest" phones? He mostly watches YouTube
and listens to music, and occasionally plays PUBG, all of which you could do
on previous versions. He's also not some passionate photographer, so the
fancier camera isn't going to make a huge difference.

~~~
slumdev
These stories are too common.

I would guess that the median* wage on HN is probably around 5x what your
brother-in-law makes. And I would also guess that many of us are perfectly
content with old phones, old cars, and generally reduced consumption. Hell, I
buy clothes at thrift/resale shops when I find something nice that fits.

What are people of means (relatively) seeing? Is it because we have more
leisure time and can afford to filter the media we consume?

*I'm consciously using median because I would guess that FAANG and the coasts skew the mean.

~~~
tombert
That's what I find strange too; I _can_ afford to get the new iPhone every
year or two if I wanted (most software engineers probably can), and yet I plan
on keeping mine until it's dead, broken, or stolen. I don't own a car, but if
I did it would probably the cheapest car in reasonably good shape that gets
reasonably good gas mileage.

There's a part of me that wonders if a lot of it boils down to education. My
brother-in-law is relatively smart and able to learn new stuff fairly quickly,
but he doesn't really have any education past high-school. Being better
trained at math and compsci would probably help him realize the value for his
purchases a bit better.

~~~
chickenchaser
>I can afford to get the new iPhone every year or two if I wanted

Maybe that's what the difference is. Being able to afford these things means
you might not feel a similar need to posture that you can afford a certain
lifestyle that you really can't. I'm guessing that at minimum wage most would
struggle financially especially in a large city like NYC, so being able to
pull the newest iPhone out of their pocket might be their way of assuring
themselves and people around them that they are doing alright financially.

~~~
paulryanrogers
My wife has had more contact with poorer communities. And she believes it's
partly to maintain the appearance of wealth and status. I suspect it's also a
luxury within reach versus those which seem impossible: homeownership,
choosing ones employer, world travel, etc.

------
banads
Isn't that the primary goal of most advertising? To create a dissatisfaction
in people in such a way that they're driven to buy your product in an attempt
to fill that void?

~~~
nck4222
That question is addressed in the article:

"Their line is that advertising is trying to expose the public to new and
exciting things to buy, and their task is to simply provide information, and
in that way they raise human well-being. But the alternative argument, which
goes back to Thorstein Veblen and others, is that exposing people to a lot of
advertising raises their aspirations—and makes them feel that their own lives,
achievements, belongings, and experiences are inadequate. This study supports
the negative view, not the positive one."

~~~
speeder
I am currently working with marketing.

But I am happy I actually DO give information... My job consists of finding
what people need (not want, but literally need), and tell them we can provide
it.

Usually people that call the company where I work, thank us for having the
product and the ads, sometimes they say they searched for days and then found
our ads.

That said... we sell industrial parts, mostly for the maintenance of existing
machines, so it is easy to not have any ethical trap... But it is not THAT
profitable either... (just for comparison: I know a guy that works filming TV
ads, and he said politicians pay for 30 second ads to his company, the same
income my company has for several months summed...)

~~~
kaybe
Thank you, this kind of advertisement is the one kind that is actually useful
and needed. Search engines etc are a surprisingly bad way to find these kind
of products (if you even realize it exists and can describe it).

------
nabla9
New animated ads and videos in the street are just horrible. Eyes follow
movement automatically. You have to consciously avert you gaze constantly to
not look into them. Two hours in the city and you start feeling tired from the
cognitive load and the resistance towards impulse buy decreases a little.

* Walking on the street looking down is the only defense in the streets.

* Online only ad-blockers keep you sane.

~~~
HONEST_ANNIE
The book 'The Space Merchants' (1952) from Frederik Pohl and Cyril M.
Kornbluth describes this type world.

World is run by ad companies (FB, Google,...) who select political leaders.
People have to be careful on the street not to be trapped by highly aggressive
ads.

~~~
r00fus
In fiction I also liked Richard K Morgan's take on holographic advertising in
_Altered Carbon_.

------
ckosidows
I think this video points out Epicurus' opinions on advertisement
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4L3dLWwmDDw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4L3dLWwmDDw).

I don't have time to re-watch the video, but I remember the gist being that
the _point_ of advertisements is to make you feel like you're missing out on
something. If an ad can't make you feel that way, how will it sell you on its
product? Someone who feels they have everything doesn't need to purchase
anything to fill a need/want.

Really it's simple when you think about it. Company wants to sell you a
product. You think you don't need anything else in your life because you're
content. Company tells you your life could be better with their product;
therefore, your life is missing something (said product). You are no longer
content until you have said product.

It's nice to have evidence that supports an idea proposed centuries ago.

------
pascalxus
I have a hard time relating to these findings.

Advertisement almost never works on me. And, the few times it does work on me,
I'm actually quite glad and appreciative because I only buy products I really
want or really need.

If I look at all my credit card, amazon and ebay purchases for the last
several years, which i do often, i see it's just the things I need/want: gas,
maintenance, groceries a few times going out to eat, etc. almost 0
merchandise, those things don't make me happier.

It's pretty rare that I see an appealing advertisement (to me). but it does
happen.

ads don't really say much about the product. but, I do find them interesting
because they say a huge amount about segments of our population: their hopes,
their dreams, their perceptions, how they want to be seen, how much they care
what others think, etc. it's a great case study for humanity.

~~~
dibujaron
"Advertising doesn't work on me" is a lie that nearly everyone tells
themselves. Advertisers love this.

Ads rarely makes anyone rush out to go buy x out of the blue, but if someone
is choosing between x product and y product, they're much more likely to pick
x if has been advertised to them before. The substance of the ad is almost
irrelevant; just because they've heard the name of x repeatedly before,
they're much more likely to choose it.

~~~
pascalxus
Your might be right about most people. (advertisers love to tell this to their
CEO but they've been wrong about this before - just look at the 20 million
dollar case study with Ebay and their wasted ad spend on google ads).

But, it really doesn't work on me 99.9% of the time. I know because I review
all my spending habits and I can clearly see 1/2 of the products I buy don't
even advertise. Ever seen an ad for cucumbers or tomatoes or other real food?
or rotten robbies gas station? i have no idea what label is on my clothes.
etc.

And even on the rare occasions when it does work, the vast majority of the ads
still are completely wasted. How many times have I seen an ad for metromile,
when I'm already a happy customer of theirs. their targetting must be awful.

Sometimes I use the product because I'm forced to: like when sharebuilder got
bought out by etrade. how many times will I see the completely useless etrade
ads over my lifetime? i mean I'm already their customer (by default), so all
their ad dollars are completely wasted.

~~~
mayniac
I doubt the only products you buy are cucumbers, tomatoes and gas. You've
chosen your phone, laptop, car, and various other branded items. Advertising
very likely played a role in your decisions there.

How can you actually be sure that advertising doesn't work on you? Of course,
you don't see an ad on TV for a new smart fridge and immediately jump out of
your sofa, wallet in hand, to go buy it. But the key thing is that _nobody
does_. That's not the point. The idea is that six months down the line when
your fridge breaks irreparably and you're deciding between different brands,
those ads will have an influence, and you won't realise it.

People who think advertising doesn't work on them _are godsends to
advertisers_. This article puts it quite well, although I don't agree with its
conclusions[0]:

"If you don’t believe advertising works on you, you are going to be more
likely to see good advertising as something else entirely and be more
receptive to it and thusly more likely to take the action I want you to take."

There was a study a few months ago which found that people who think they are
immune to advertising are more susceptible to it than average, but I can't
find a link. It was one of the things that changed my opinion on this: I also
used to think I was not susceptible to most advertising, but this is a
dangerous mentality. You just don't think you're susceptible. I've come around
to thinking Bill Hicks was completely right on this [1]

Also with the Metromile point, that's not bad targeting. Ads are often
targeted at existing users of the ads product. The point is to keep brand
loyalty and limit buyer's remorse.

[0] [https://medium.com/@dahanese/advertising-works-don-t-
believe...](https://medium.com/@dahanese/advertising-works-don-t-believe-me-
then-you-are-my-favorite-demographic-ebf6b1f2541a) [1]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tHEOGrkhDp0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tHEOGrkhDp0)

~~~
pascalxus
I'm not your typical consumer. I buy the cheapest thing of each category
unless there's an overwhelming reason not to. Computer: macbook pro (not
because of ads but because I had to in order to develop for apple products),
phone: Iphone - got it for free as a handme down from my wife. Very few of the
groceries I buy have labels on them: it's all fresh fruit, veggies, things
from the bulk section, almost nothing in the grocery store I've bought is
advertised. I don't eat processed food or any kind of food that comes in a box
or prepackaged bag. When my fridge breaks down I will buy the cheapest fridge
I can find unless there's data that shows some fridges are more reliable than
others. I buy maybe 2 pairs of pants per decade, and when I do buy clothes
it's usually at used clothing store, and I don't pay any attention to what the
label says other than the size and type of material.

Brand almost never ever comes into my decision making process. that's why its
so hard for me to believe. I buy the cheaper one every time unless there's
overwhelming reason not to. Frankly, I don't understand how this isn't the
default behaviour for everyone.

The only areas where advertising works on me is on the following (when they
actually give me information about products I actually want): occassionally on
movies (but even then it's a small percentage ~ most of the time i get
whatevers i find on fandango ~ i've even missed some movies i wanted to watch
because the ads didn't reach me or I forgot), occassionally the restaurant
coupons (half price), metromile, maybe banking (since that actually does
require trust) .

Metromile is wasting their money by retargetting me. I'll leave the second I
find another insurance that's cheaper - I have absolutely 0 brand loyalty for
almost everything. If anything, they're just reminding me to check around for
cheaper services that may pop up.

Utility bills -> no choice therefore ads don't matter. Housing -> found on
zillow . Zillow itself, someone told me about it (not advertisement).

phone plan - i really had to hunt to find usmobile - 8$/month for 100 minutes,
100 messages. I can't even imagine how much money the telecom industry has
squandered on me without any effect at all.

ISP - At&t hits me ads all the time, and everytime I'm just reminded about how
evil they are and I check around to see if there's any other better broadband
providers besides the one I'm using right now. so their ads are actually
having the opposite of the desired effect, same with comcast.

The reason all these ads don't affect me is because they all appeal to Emotion
and unverifiable information. And that's not how I generally make my
decisions.

For example, when at&t says they have the best network, that's completely
useless to me because I can't verify that it's true, or at least it's hard to
do so.

Because most ads appeal based on emotion and I don't use emotion to make my
buying decisions, it means they simply don't work.

~~~
mntmoss
Advertising readily exploits low price consumers like you, too.

First of all, they find ways to drop quality. At first they have the good deal
for a limited time. This results in social proofing - good reviews and
customer approvals - that theirs is the exceptional choice - quality at low
price. Then they downgrade it. But because you were already buying it, you
won't look the next time.

Second, they find ways to engineer deals that lead you down a path of more
expensive dependencies. You go to the supermarket, and you get your veggies,
and you see a sign saying "best enjoyed with" \- and there's a product. Maybe
one you know and are familiar with, maybe one you don't. Regardless, you see
the sign and the message and you start wondering, "am I enjoying my veggies
less because I'm doing it wrong?"

The dairy industry has succeeded at this for decades, crafting all sorts of
narratives about the necessity for milk, the pleasure of milk, how milk lets
you have moments shared with friends. It doesn't have to have a brand name
attached to reach you and reprogram you.

~~~
asdff
I don't think everyone is fooled by these types of maneuvers. Ye olde cable
bundle model isn't going to fool a truly pragmatic person, even if it
manifests itself in the grocery store. The drop in quality thing is something
to explicitly watch for and expect, especially when the bait and switch you
describe happens routinely on sites like Amazon these days.

Once you are aware of the many different ways an ad can manifest, they become
uncanny. It becomes a game to spot them, and to think about _why_ this ad was
bought to run at this particular time and place. I see that ad for california
walnuts playing out in public, and it feels absolutely dystopian. I think they
say "heart-heatlhy, california walnuts" about a half dozen times in the clip,
like a mantra. The spell is broken if you ever read about the nut industry's
water use, and connect the dots with the ever present threat of drought in
california, and climate change worsening it all.

------
hristov
When this topic comes up I like to remind people of the brilliant and under
appreciated movie Roger Dodger. The main character in it is an advertising
executive and he flat out said that his job is to convince people their lives
sucked. First you have to convince someone their life sucks and then it is
quite easy to convince them that the latest product will improve their lives.

This is the way advertising works.

~~~
asdff
Mad men is great, too; it's positioned right at the bellwether moment of
market research and psychology taking over whimsy narratives in advertisement
in the 1960s.

------
me551ah
That's the core of Buddha's teaching right there. Craving leads to
suffering/dissatisfaction and advertisement is all about increasing craving
for a product. The more things you crave, the more things you cannot get. And
the things you cannot get give rise to negative feelings like jealousy,
sadness and even frustration.

------
JohnFen
This makes sense, given that a very large amount of (most?) advertising
intentionally attempts to make you feel bad about something, in order to make
you more likely to buy their "solution".

------
cryptica
Even if you yourself are not too directly affected by advertising, it can
still affect your friends and family members. Collectively, it can create
expectations and social pressure on you which makes your life less pleasant
and more complicated than it needs to be.

------
kaffeemitsahne
For a few weeks now, the billboards (including video billboards...) at train
stations in the Netherlands are blank, due to a legal issue[1]. I take the
train multiple times a week and I think it's very pleasant. Unfortunately it
won't last.

[1] There was a bid held between two ad companies, a third company sued
because they wanted to get included in the bid, too.

------
nickelcitymario
I'm gonna take the contrarian viewpoint here. Full disclosure: I'm in
advertising.

The researcher states that increasing "aspiration" (their term) leads to
dissatisfaction and more unhappiness. Sure! But aspiration is also why we
invented the wheel, harnessed fire, founded fancy schools like Harvard, try to
be good parents, etc. I don't disagree that ambition and aspiration can make a
person unhappy. But it's also what drives literally all human progress.

So unless you believe primitive man was living their best life and that
everything that has happened since then is a regression (and certainly some
people hold that view), I find it hard to swallow that aspirations are a bad
thing.

Yes, there's a negative to them. But virtually every good thing people have
ever done was because of their aspirations.

Therefore I don't agree with the notion that advertising is inherently bad
because it raises people's expectations for themselves. I consider that a good
thing even if it comes at the cost of a decrease in personal happiness.

HOWEVER (I can feel your hatred), there's a difference between motivating
people to aspire to better things vs simply making them feel shitty about
themselves so they'll buy your crap.

ex: When a fashion brand shows impossibly attractive people wearing their
clothes, they're not showing us how to live better lives. They're simply
making us feel shitty for not being models, and then hoping we'll make the
conclusion that we'd look better if we bought those clothes. That doesn't make
anyone's life better. That's just a shit sandwich all around.

ex: When a tech company shows us a bunch of people being really productive
using their products, it can inspire us to want to be more productive. If
their product truly can make us more productive (like the invention of the
PC... no reasonable person would argue that PCs didn't make us more
productive, right?), then that's great.

ex: Pharmaceutical drugs have been a fantastic boon for humanity. We rely on
them constantly to extend our lives and improve our quality of life. Yet some
(many?) drugs are nowhere near as beneficial as they are advertised (I'm
looking at you, Fentanyl).

So I think the question is simply: does the product actually improve our lives
in the way the advertising suggests? Or is it just a bait-and-switch?

Advertising isn't inherently bad, any more than aspirations are inherently
bad. It boils down to what's being advertised and how honest the ads are about
it.

~~~
JohnFen
> But aspiration is also why we invented the wheel, harnessed fire, founded
> fancy schools like Harvard, try to be good parents, etc.

Excluding fancy schools (which I believe aren't exactly a good thing), none of
those things were inspired by "aspiration" in the sense being used here. They
were inspired by genuine need.

> I consider that a good thing even if it comes at the cost of a decrease in
> personal happiness.

We could not possibly disagree more. I think it is straight-up immoral for
anyone to intentionally make another's life worse in order to sell them stuff.

> Advertising isn't inherently bad, any more than aspirations are inherently
> bad. It boils down to what's being advertised and how honest the ads are
> about it.

We agree here. Advertising, in the form that advertisers tend cite to people
who are critical of advertising (informing people about products) is not
inherently bad.

However, the vast majority of advertising isn't of that form at all. It's of
the form of manipulating people instead. That's the sort of advertising that
is terrible.

~~~
nickelcitymario
> We could not possible disagree more. I think it is straight-up immoral for
> anyone to intentionally make another's life worse in order to sell them
> stuff.

I'm not sure we disagree, actually. I think you may be misunderstanding my
meaning.

When I tell you about a product, a number of things are happening:

1\. If I'm successful in getting you to want the product, I've created (or
emphasized an existing) dissatisfaction. That's not good. But:

2\. I've given you the knowledge of a solution to your problem. Depending on
the problem at hand, the solution might improve your health, extend your life,
help you earn more money, be a better parent, donate to a charity, etc.

So I think if you want to stand in judgment of the morality of advertising, it
has to be done on a case by case basis, and you have to weigh all the pros and
cons.

I'll give you an example of a type of advertising that will clearly decrease
your happiness but is still a net positive. (Impossible, right?)

Take a look at any ad for any charity. Those ads make your life worse by
telling you how miserable things are for some group of people or animals or
some other cause. And even if you "buy" what the ads are selling (i.e. you
give them money), you're still going to feel like garbage about their cause.
And yet, I'm willing to bet you wouldn't consider those ads to be evil, would
you?

It's an extreme example, but it illustrates my point: you have to consider
more than just happiness.

Here's a more extreme example: If all I cared about was making people happy,
I'd sell heroin. Heroin feels awesome. Heroin makes people happy. It also
destroys their lives in the process. Some addicts manage to be happy all the
way to their death bed.

So happiness is not the end-all-be-all measurement of what is good and what is
bad. It's definitely A measurement. I'm not discounting it. I'm just saying
there are other things to consider as well, and I don't personally consider it
the #1 most important measurement. (It's probably in my top 5.)

~~~
JohnFen
> I've given you the knowledge of a solution to your problem.

But you've given a "solution" (that involves separating me from my money) to a
problem that you created in the first place. I don't see how that's a good
thing.

> And yet, I'm willing to bet you wouldn't consider those ads to be evil,
> would you?

"Evil" isn't the word I'd use. "Immoral" is. If a charitable organization is
using ads that are intentionally trying to make me feel bad (as opposed to
merely informing me), then those ads don't suddenly become acceptable just
because it's a charitable organization. The ends don't justify the means.
Interestingly enough, although I donate to charitable organization reasonably
heavily, I long ago decided not to donate to ones that engage in such
advertising, for precisely this reason.

> If all I cared about was making people happy, I'd sell heroin.

No, you wouldn't, because doing so will make people unhappy, not happy.
"Feeling good" is a very different thing than happiness, particularly if
you're only looking at the near term.

~~~
nickelcitymario
> But you've given a "solution" (that involves separating me from my money) to
> a problem that you created in the first place.

When did I create a problem? Yes, some advertising invents nonexistent
problems and I thought I was clear that this shit is evil. That's a different
thing from saying "that headache you have sucks, doesn't it? here's some
tylenol"

> No, you wouldn't, because doing so will make people unhappy, not happy.

Way to miss the point, dude.

~~~
asdff
Imagine being overweight and being told by an absolute stranger, "gee, you
look bad. come join my gym, you'd look like this ripped guy." Prick, right?

People have dissatisfactions, but only advertisements have the audacity to
point them out as a complete stranger. Even if a loved one did that, you might
recoil. when people are unhappy about something, they will share it with
someone they trust if they want to talk about it. Advertisements get a free
pass to nose into your life and be your mother? Please.

~~~
nickelcitymario
I actually agree. Which is why my first comment on this thread said this:

> HOWEVER (I can feel your hatred), there's a difference between motivating
> people to aspire to better things vs simply making them feel shitty about
> themselves so they'll buy your crap.

There are lots of different ways to motivate people. Lying is one of them.
Making them feel bad about themselves works too. I don't support either of
those approaches.

So to use your example about the gym, I strongly dislike most fitness/health
advertising for the very reasons you state. If I were to run ads for that
industry, I'd focus on the effort of regular everyday people. I wouldn't show
impossibly perfect (and mostly photoshopped) people. I'd show people from
across the whole spectrum pushing themselves, waking up early to hit the gym.
I'd focus on health, not "beauty". On working out so you can have more energy,
fewer health complications, greater strength, etc. I wouldn't run ads that
tell you "you should work out because it's the only way you could ever look
like this model over here".

But that's just me. I don't know if my approach would work, because I haven't
had the opportunity to try it yet. (Not a lot of fitness brands looking for an
ad agency in Northern Ontario.)

------
screye
One pretty tangential anecdote.

My university enforced a no-laptop-no-internet rule (back in the 2011, 2G
internet era in India) for our Freshman year.

It was the single best year of my life.

Me, a person who had grown up on and shaped by the internet, quickly realized
how little of it mattered to my happiness after a few days away from it.

It made me realize how subjective things like happiness and satisfaction are.
Especially given that I had already been exposed to the opulence of things on
offer growing up on the internet. But, the second it stopped being shoved in
my face incessantly, my priorities realigned and I started finding happiness
and satisfaction in other, more local things.

Coming full circle, the second we entered our sophomore year we got high speed
internet and laptops. People just as quickly reverted to their old selves, all
while lamenting how they miss how things were in the freshmen year.

------
NPMaxwell
Write up of methodology & results:
[https://www.andrewoswald.com/docs/AdvertisingMicheletal2019E...](https://www.andrewoswald.com/docs/AdvertisingMicheletal2019EasterlinVolume.pdf)

------
itronitron
that's how you know that the advertising is working

~~~
wpietri
Exactly. This is classic POSIWID:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_purpose_of_a_system_is_wha...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_purpose_of_a_system_is_what_it_does)

People mainly buy things to solve problems, to end negative feelings. So if
you want people to buy things, the obvious solution is to create negative
feelings that can be ended by spending money on your product.

The most obvious example is of course addictive products. Just when we were
finally weaning society of nicotine, Juul has been very successful in creating
a new generation of addicts.

But I think they dynamic is true more broadly. Feeling low in social status?
Buy this expensive car, these expensive clothes, this expensive watch! And if
you _aren 't_ feeling like that, let's show you enough fancy people with fancy
things until you do feel bad. Social status isn't your weakness? Well we have
plenty of creative teams who will find something we can make you feel bad
about.

And for those who are skeptical, I encourage you to read about Edward Bernays,
the "father of public relations", who took his inspiration from war propaganda
and applied it to manipulating consumer behavior:
[http://theconversation.com/the-manipulation-of-the-
american-...](http://theconversation.com/the-manipulation-of-the-american-
mind-edward-bernays-and-the-birth-of-public-relations-44393)

~~~
nickelcitymario
Public relations != advertising.

Ed Bernays != spokesperson for all PR professionals.

There are shady people in every industry.

~~~
kerkeslager
> Public relations != advertising.

Not a distinction I care to make. The problems with both are fundamentally the
same.

> Ed Bernays != spokesperson for all PR professionals.

Okay, but all PR professionals and advertisers are trying to manipulate
people. That is literally the job. Everyone else in the industry has the same
goals--Bernays may have been willing to do more unscrupulous things to achieve
those goals, but the goals are fundamentally unscrupulous.

> There are shady people in every industry.

But some industries, the purpose of the industry itself is shady. Advertising
and PR are such industries.

~~~
nickelcitymario
Question for you then: Are you or are you not trying to manipulate me to share
your point of view?

If all advertising is manipulation, then so are all conversations. Every
debate, every argument, every statement of fact or opinion.

I don't consider it manipulation if it's honest. If I run an ad that says
"These burgers cost only $1.25" and they really do cost $1.25, that's hardly
manipulation.

If, on the other hand, I say "This burger cost only $1.25" but I was referring
only to the patty, and not the bun and toppings and whatever else you see
pictured, then that's manipulation (bordering on out-right lying).

Bernays said a lot of things that simply weren't true because he didn't care
about the truth. And yeah, a lot of PR and advertising people would share his
immoral stance on things. But most of the people I know in the industry aren't
like that. We strive to create honest work that is entertaining enough to
catch your attention so we can tell you something true about the product.

There's an idea out there that advertising is about selling you things
regardless of whether you'd benefit from it or not. In my books, this is a
stupid way to spend your advertising dollars. Instead, you should do the hard
work of figuring out who, if anyone, would benefit from the product, and then
create a campaign to reach them.

Obviously, some advertisers have no such ethical dilemma. Not to point
fingers, but there are plenty of products that only do damage to people's
lives. I'd like to think the clients I currently work with do not fall into
this category, but that hasn't always been the case and feel free to judge me
for that.

~~~
kerkeslager
> Question for you then: Are you or are you not trying to manipulate me to
> share your point of view?

You go on after this question to explain what manipulation is, so it seems
like you understand the concept, and can probably figure out how it doesn't
apply to this conversation.

> There's an idea out there that advertising is about selling you things
> regardless of whether you'd benefit from it or not. In my books, this is a
> stupid way to spend your advertising dollars. Instead, you should do the
> hard work of figuring out who, if anyone, would benefit from the product,
> and then create a campaign to reach them.

If your actual goal is to help people find things they would benefit from,
then what's the best way to do that? Some ideas:

1\. Review sites that try to be unbiased and share expert opinions on possible
solutions to your problem. Obviously there are pitfalls here: the best
solutions are ones where the site receives money from consumers, not companies
with products to sell.

2\. Word of mouth recommendations from friends and family, who intimately know
your actual needs and genuinely want you to be successful.

3\. People often know their own needs and go out to find solutions to their
own needs, soliciting advice from 1 and 2, but also by asking experts
(doctors, mechanics, etc.) who they pay to give them good advice.

4\. A minimalist movement that views the entire idea of purchasing something
with skepticism. I'm not against paying for products, but I do think it's
important to see that paying for products is a tradeoff. Paying for a solution
isn't always the best way to solve a problem, and in fact isn't always better
than the problem itself.

Literally no part of a reasonable solution for helping people involves showing
them only your product (not your competitors'), and/or only the positive
aspects of your product. And that's the _absolute best case_ for advertising.

And to be clear, that's not honest, it's lying by omission. If you're any good
at your job, you know who your competitors are, and you know their strengths,
but you're not sharing that information with your target audience. That's
information that's relevant to the wants/needs of your target audience, but
you're withholding that information, because it benefits you/your clients. The
idea that this is you trying to go out and help people find and choose the
best products for their needs is very naive.

Contrary to your belief, advertising _actively prevents_ people from finding
products that best solve their problems. Worse products beat out better
products if they have better advertising, and this is the norm, not the
exception, because every dollar spent on advertising is a dollar not spent on
producing the best product possible. In theory, a company that makes profit
from advertising can reinvest that profit into R+D, but in practice the
incentives don't lead in that direction. A company that makes a profit by
advertising has no reason to take a risk by changing strategy.

~~~
nickelcitymario
First up: I just wanna say it wasn't my goal to be the defender of the ad
industry. I started this comment thread to defend the idea of aspirations as a
good thing.

That being said:

> The idea that this is you trying to go out and help people find and choose
> the best products for their needs is very naive.

You're right, that would be naive. It's not what I said though.

re: Review sites, word of mouth, contacting experts: That's all great. But to
the business owner who's wondering how they're going to make payroll 3 months
from now, that's not exactly helpful. Your recommendation to them is to just
sit back and hope people stumble onto what they're selling?

> You go on after this question to explain what manipulation is, so it seems
> like you understand the concept, and can probably figure out how it doesn't
> apply to this conversation.

You haven't made any attempt to present the other side of the argument either.
You say I'm dishonest for presenting my clients in the best possible light,
yet you also pick and choose what to present in defence of your position. I'm
fine with that, but it seems to me that if you held yourself to the same
standard, you'd make an effort to consider the position of all the people
involved in advertising.

Maybe the world really would be better if it were free of advertising. I'm not
sure. I don't think such a world has existed in thousands of years, but it'd
be interesting to see. In the meantime, we live in a world where advertising
does exist, and therefor it's foolish not to participate in it, because doing
so would give your competitors an unfair advantage.

~~~
kerkeslager
> First up: I just wanna say it wasn't my goal to be the defender of the ad
> industry. I started this comment thread to defend the idea of aspirations as
> a good thing.

Okay, but I wasn't really attacking aspirations, either. I've criticized
"conquering desire" before on HN as leading to useless monasticism.

> re: Review sites, word of mouth, contacting experts: That's all great. But
> to the business owner who's wondering how they're going to make payroll 3
> months from now, that's not exactly helpful. Your recommendation to them is
> to just sit back and hope people stumble onto what they're selling?

No, I don't have a recommendation for them. I get it, business owners are
somewhat forced to advertise, because their competitors are advertising. I'm
saying that we as a society should not be pretending advertising is some
positive thing, we should be removing advertising from our content, our public
spaces, etc.

Ultimately, this isn't necessarily bad for businesses. If advertising didn't
exist and people found out about products by other means, businesses could
compete on just producing the best products.

> You haven't made any attempt to present the other side of the argument
> either. You say I'm dishonest for presenting my clients in the best possible
> light, yet you also pick and choose what to present in defence of your
> position. I'm fine with that, but it seems to me that if you held yourself
> to the same standard, you'd make an effort to consider the position of all
> the people involved in advertising.

1\. Presenting all the opinions is not the same as presenting all the facts.
In fact, presenting all opinions is _counterproductive_ to providing a well-
rounded summary of the facts: if you present flat earthers on the same level
as cosmologists, you're dignifying non-truth as if it were truth. I'm not
obligated to state opinions like "Advertisers are just trying to help you find
what you want!" because that's just a lie, and stating it alongside the truth
would make them seem like equal ideas. Leaving out incorrect opinions is not
the same as leaving out facts.

2\. Even if you could make it stick that I'm a hypocrite, so what? Just
because someone is a hypocrite doesn't mean they're wrong. That's just an ad
hominem attack on me. Let's stick to debating the topic, not my character.

> In the meantime, we live in a world where advertising does exist, and
> therefor it's foolish not to participate in it, because doing so would give
> your competitors an unfair advantage.

Sure--if you're a business owner it's foolish to play by the rules when nobody
else is. But as humans and members of society, not as business owners, we can
strive to create a world without advertising.

~~~
nickelcitymario
Don't have much to say to most of this. Agree with some of it.

> Let's stick to debating the topic, not my character.

Read this thread and tell me the character of my industry in general and of
myself specifically have not been the subject of debate. Attack my character
and I consider it perfectly fair to attack yours. If the worst thing I've said
about your character is that you're being hypocritical (and I think it is),
I'd say you've taken fewer lumps than I have.

~~~
kerkeslager
Okay, sure. If you want to say I'm a hypocrite, fine. It's not a point I care
to defend myself from.

The fact still remains that the advertising industry is a blight on society.

~~~
nickelcitymario
I believe you've confused "fact" with "opinion", unless you're intentionally
trying to deceive anyone reading this.

~~~
wpietri
Sorry, it's a fact. At the very best, the great bulk of it is unnecessary:
companies advertise because their competitors advertise. If we just stopped,
we'd have hundreds of billions to spend on something actually useful. And
that's before we get to the harm caused. E.g., the harm documented in the
study. Or the millions of people killed due to tobacco advertising.

~~~
nickelcitymario
There's an awful lot of things I'd consider a "blight on society" but I never
mistake my opinion as fact.

When's the last time you saw an ad for tobacco? Is that still a thing in the
states? We don't have that in Canada. (Even the packaging is legally required
to be generic up here, and they have to be hidden behind a locked door.)

There are ads for vaping products, though. I suspect they'll be outlawed soon.

------
sologoub
> If I see this $10,000 watch and then look at my watch, which I probably paid
> about $150 for, I might think, “Maybe there’s something wrong with me.”

That entire paragraph made me really sad and the quote is probably the saddest
part. People actually think like this, and it’s unclear what, if anything, can
be done to help.

------
4ntonius8lock
Having read the article, it seems they are concluding a causality that isn't
necessarily there.

The whole study is based on: there's a correlation between advertising spend
per capita and life satisfaction between countries in Europe.

Now that COULD mean advertising is making people unhappy.

Or it could mean that people who are less satisfied tend to buy more crap and
when people buy more crap they get more advertising. It's not as if
advertisers are stupid.

The researcher in the article even admits to this being a one off with no
other studies backing his claim. Now what's more likely, he discovered
something no one else has, or he misinterpreted the data?

~~~
throwawaymath
I wish yours wasn't the only comment talking about this. It saddens me to see
articles like this, where causation is imposed on correlation. Everyone
"knows" correlation doesn't imply causation, but they only seem to know it in
the sense of a student reciting it. They don't apply that knowledge
critically.

A single study of two things as complicated as advertising measurement and
happiness/satisfaction, and the intuitively compelling conclusion is
immediately embraced as the truth because it's "obvious."

Edit: Again with the downvotes...come on HN. I'm not defending advertising,
I'm criticizing the reporting on a study in a world which has a rampant
replication crisis.

~~~
4ntonius8lock
The funny thing is, the most up voted comments on this topic don't even seem
to be about the FA. They are mostly just 'generic advertising is bad
comment/anecdote related to the title'.

Another idea I had after reading the article is that advertising is more
pervasive in big cities. From what I can recall, big city inhabitants tend to
have a lower life satisfaction rating than smaller town dwellers. So countries
with more urban dwellers might normally have more advertising and less life
satisfaction... because big cities, not necessarily advertising. Also richer
nations tend to be less happy, and by being richer have more advertising.
There's a lot of ways to interpret the data.

It's funny to see the group-think dynamic on display needed to make non
relevant comments go up and comments related to the article be down-voted
(which aren't even stating anything specific... you and I never even said
'it's this' just questioning 'maybe not that')

Another super interesting thing that I glean from the down-votes is the bottom
down view only when convenient.

If you post on HN that tech companies are evil and conspiring against our
privacy, people will say (IMO mostly rightly BTW) that it's mostly bottom up,
with consumers CHOOSING bad options. But as soon as advertising comes in the
mix, now the world is top down, with evil marketeers manipulating the masses
anyway they want.

To all the down-voters: your boos mean nothing, I've seen what makes you
cheer!

------
darthreid
The true irony of having to close an ad before being able to read this article

------
marcus_holmes
the goal of advertising is to make you want something you don't have. QED

~~~
otabdeveloper4
Using advertising to create demand is only a tiny part of the advertising
market, and arguably the worst way to spend your ad budget.

Most advertising is to maintain your market share in already established and
very competitive markets.

E.g., Coca-Cola plastering their logo everywhere to prevent Pepsi from doing
the same. It's certainly not to convince those who don't drink Coke to start
doing so.

~~~
kerkeslager
It seems like as a society if we agreed not to have advertising, we would save
both companies (b|m)illions of dollars.

This isn't an argument for advertising, it's an argument that advertising is
an infectious disease: once one company in an industry starts advertising, the
others have to advertise to compete. And that hurts consumers because every
dollar spent on advertising is a dollar that comes out of the pockets of
consumers and is not spent on improving the product.

~~~
Nasrudith
It is a symptom/emergent result of competition really and differentiating
themselves. Not having competition would obviously lead to more stagnation
which would lead to things being worse for consumers.

Really advertising is sort of an analog to reproductive signaling burdens like
males deliberately showing fitness by making themselves obvious to predators.

~~~
kerkeslager
> It is a symptom/emergent result of competition really and differentiating
> themselves. Not having competition would obviously lead to more stagnation
> which would lead to things being worse for consumers.

Right, but we don't have to accept that it has to be this way. If we're
committing to the idea that competition is there to benefit consumers, we
should cut out the parts of competition that clearly _aren 't_ beneficial to
consumers.

There would still be competition if people got information about products from
independent reviewers, it would just be competition based on the qualities of
the products, rather than the advertising.

~~~
otabdeveloper4
> ...if people got information about products from independent reviewers

No such thing; in markets where traditional advertising never caught hold, the
'independent' reviewers are anything but. In a way that is much worse when
bias and vested interest is clearly labeled.

~~~
kerkeslager
Consumer Reports, Labdoor, etc. work just fine.

You can look at where the money for these companies comes from, and see who
they're serving.

Also, if you think that advertising bias and vested interest is clearly
labeled, you may be seeing a lot of advertising that you don't realize is
advertising.

------
hogFeast
This doesn't feel like a very scientific approach. Looking at national
satisfaction and then national advertising spend...seems like there would be
huge scope for bias regardless of how many controls you put in. In particular,
something like individual wellbeing is just that...individual. Really very
tricky (and as always you see the researcher give out ludicrously unjustified
advice to individuals...if you go to a psychologist and tell them you are
unhappy, they don't ask how many adverts you saw recently).

------
mhb
Since they're smart, I'll assume that they somehow controlled for the cause of
the lower life satisfaction not being the ads but exposure to the types of
media which display ads. ?

------
j45
Reading this article made me think of how different you tn felt to use YouTube
without ads. So much so that I'd consider paying a bit more to be free of
search ads. And Twitter Ads.

------
dpflan
Could this help paint advertising as a public health problem?

------
newscracker
It’s ironic that an article about advertising having an inverse correlation
with life satisfaction thrusts a popup ad when the page is opened! _sigh_ It
reminded me of the New York Times article on tracking on the web while NYT
itself was using several trackers.

------
bduerst
Title is misleading - the inverse correlation is between advertising
_spending_ and life satisfaction.

This could be indicative of ads causing unhappiness, but it could also be
indicative of increased social media use, which also causes unhappiness.

------
denkmoon
Removing ads from my life is a personal crusade. Psychologically manipulative
garbage.

------
cyorir
I find it just a bit funny that when I clicked on the link to an article
titled, "advertising makes us unhappy," the first thing that happened is that
an ad popped up to cover the whole page.

------
jacobsimon
The irony of seeing a popup ad on HBR immediately when clicking on this link.

------
emddudley
So what you're saying is that I should stop visiting levels.fyi ...?

------
sidhantgandhi
The first thing I see when I click the link: ADVERTISEMENT pop up.

------
perfunctory
Advertising is so pervasive in our lives that it’s become like water for fish
- it is hard to imagine a world without ads.

Even bigger problem with advertisement - it is (indirectly) driving climate
change.

Most likely we’d be happier and safer without ads. Sigh.

------
hirako2000
Do we really need research to confirm this?

------
polskibus
Adblockers make you happy!

------
s0meone
We should always be careful of drawing big conclusions based on observational
studies...

------
throwawaymath
I can see a few compelling arguments for it, but personally I'd be very wary
of concluding causation from this relationship. The two things are very
complicated and have many confounding variables involved. I see it just as
likely that the correlation is spurious, and people exposed to advertising
have lower life satisfaction for a variety of complex reasons incidental to
the ads themselves.

Capitalism affords many opportunities for someone to be unhappy and
unsatisfied; advertising may cause this or simply exacerbate what is already
there.

I'm disappointed with the way HBR reported this. The researchers are
explicitly quoted as saying they found a "negative connection", which, yes, is
an inverse correlation. No matter how intuitively compelling, you can't just
extrapolate that to a conclusion of causation as the author of this article
proceeded to do right in the introduction.

Edit: Why is this being downvoted? Do you disagree with my point that we can't
extrapolate causation from correlation, or do find my comment to be off topic?

~~~
kerkeslager
Do you have an alternative hypothesis for why advertising would be inversely
correlated with satisfaction?

If not, it seems like we should operate on our best hypothesis with evidence
for it, not speculate about unknown unknowns.

You did at one point say that advertising might not be causing the lower
satisfaction, it might just be exacerbating other problems that cause lower
satisfaction. While that possibility certainly warrants investigation to see
what those other problems are, it doesn't have any implications for how we
treat advertising: either way we should be seeking to decrease its influence
on our lives.

~~~
throwawaymath
_> If not, it seems like we should operate on our best hypothesis with
evidence for it, not speculate about unknown unknowns._

Nope! We shouldn't. Speculation is precisely what we should do! That's what a
critical review of research involves. We should take this as excellent
motivation for _further research._ It could be true, but we haven't done
nearly enough work to conclude as much. I'm not saying it's wrong, I'm saying
it's uncertain, and it's strictly unscientific to proceed by assuming
something uncertain is the truth just because it's _intuitively_ compelling.
Intuitively compelling narratives are very dangerous in science, because they
make you believe you have a shortcut to the truth and they're vindicated right
up until they aren't. It's not a good habit.

Happiness is incredibly complicated. Contradicting evidence and results abound
across studies of life satisfaction. Measuring the impact and success of
_advertising_ itself is highly complex; the researchers have shown this
correlation under their current methodology. What are we to conclude if
someone uses a different methodology to study the same topic, equally as
valid, and comes away with a different conclusion? That's very possible, and
we can't dismiss it. The researchers themselves hedge their claims and don't
come out and say they've found causation.

I don't really have a dog in the race with advertising. But I really despise
this kind of reporting by HBR, because the result is threads like this one
where people walk away with unproven "truths" that become part of the popular
zeitgeist because they just seem to vindicate obvious beliefs. Today it's
advertising, tomorrow it'll be something else. Given the replication crisis
we're undergoing, we shouldn't take anything away from studies like this
except that further research is required.

~~~
kerkeslager
> Nope! We shouldn't. Speculation is precisely what we should do! That's what
> a critical review of research involves. We should take this as excellent
> motivation for further research. It could be true, but we haven't done
> nearly enough work to conclude as much.

Nobody is proposing we stop researching, so let's not dignify _that_ idea by
discussing it further.

I'm proposing that _as we continue researching_ , we proceed to take action
with the best information we currently have.

> I'm not saying it's wrong, I'm saying it's uncertain, and it's strictly
> unscientific to proceed by assuming something uncertain is the truth...

It's not unscientific because of the nature of the truth, it's unscientific
because science never tells you how to proceed, ever. It only tells you an
approximation of the truth so you can make an educated decision on how you
want to proceed. There is no _should_ in science.

> ...just because it's intuitively compelling. Intuitively compelling
> narratives are very dangerous in science, because they make you believe you
> have a shortcut to the truth and they're vindicated right up until they
> aren't. It's not a good habit.

I'm not confused about these facts--you don't need to explain them. This is
irrelevant, because this isn't why I want to take action on this study.

> Happiness is incredibly complicated. Contradicting evidence and results
> abound across studies of life satisfaction. Measuring the impact and success
> of advertising itself is highly complex; the researchers have shown this
> correlation under their current methodology.

> What are we to conclude if someone uses a different methodology to study the
> same topic, equally as valid, and comes away with a different conclusion?

If that happens, we change our minds.

What are we to conclude if someone uses a different methodology to study the
same topic, equally as valid, and comes away with the same conclusion? Would
you just call for more evidence?

This isn't the first study on related subjects, and so far I haven't found any
that would lead me to a different conclusion.

> That's very possible, and we can't dismiss it. The researchers themselves
> hedge their claims and don't come out and say they've found causation.

It's also possible that the conclusions are true, and that by waiting to take
action we let people suffer from the effects of advertising longer than
necessary.

If we wait to take action until we're completely sure of the facts, we'll
never take action, because evidence is almost _never_ 100% conclusive.

The only information I have on this subject indicates that advertising is
harmful. You are correct that this information is not 100% conclusive.
However, just because we don't know something 100% conclusively, doesn't mean
we should not take action on it--the vast majority of decisions in life are
made with incomplete information.

We make decisions based on two things: 1. The best information we have, and 2.
Our goals.

So there's basically two possibilities here: either you have some information
I don't (in which case, please share that information with the class) or you
have different goals (i.e. you would be pro-advertising even if it were proven
that it makes people less happy).

------
non-entity
I remember a while back seeing an ad for smart toilets. Somewhat intrigued, I
googled for them and found that a good many of them cost several grand.

I remember thinking "who the hell are they advertising to?" No average person
is going to spend that money on a smart toilet, and I'm sure even the upper
middle class has better purchases to make in that price range.

Also I've noticed everything in commercials is so idyllic. A nice house in a
beautiful setting, with a functional family. People just buying each other
cars as Christmas gifts. It's kinda distressing to realize that most people,
including myself will never have this (in part, because I dont think it
exists)

~~~
nkrisc
That stuff exists, it just costs a lot of money. Well, except for a functional
family, money can't buy that. Want a house that looks clean and perfectly
staged all the time? Hire a full-time cleaner to come every day and sweep,
pick up, do the dishes, etc.

The lie in those commercials is that their target audience can never afford
something like that. So in a sense, you're right, they're showing "you" what
you can never have.

~~~
whatshisface
You can also keep your house clean and perfectly staged all the time by
cleaning it yourself. It's not impossible, or even difficult.

~~~
kerkeslager
Yes, but what are you giving up to do that?

~~~
whatshisface
Video games and Netflix, for most people. I really don't think the trade-off
between Netflix time and house cleanliness is a false perception synthesized
by advertisers.

~~~
wutbrodo
Netflix and videogsmes are very passive activities, and time cleaning your
house presumably isn't fungible with them, from a mental energy perspective.
I'm not in the habit of watching TV, but my sister is a good example: over the
course of her medical education and early career, her Netflix addiction has
tracked pretty directly with how mentally exhausting her workload is. If she
was at full-enough capacity during Netflix time to be cleaning house, she'd be
spending it on one of her hobbies, or reading.

~~~
whatshisface
Studies on ego depletion have failed to replicate, which means that the idea
of a limited supply of mental energy may not be true.

~~~
kerkeslager
Studies on ego depletion have nothing to do with the post you are responding
to.

