Advertising, we’re told, is a necessary evil. It pays the bills, funds free content and keeps consumer prices low.
I equate advertising rather simply with pollution. And it’s a pollution that by some estimates we take in 6,000 to 10,000 per day.
We’d do well to ask ourselves whether that affects our development.
In the same way I don’t go searching out idling car exhaust pipes to put my face into I don’t go looking for ads to subject myself to.
The car exhaust can cause neurological damage, just as ads greatly impact my brain chemistry.
But there they both are, constantly and without prompting, pushing themselves into my space. From there a non-consensual invasion begins.
So what can be done about this?
Human ad blocking
In addition to using adblocking services, I have for more than 10 years become my own ad blocker. I’ve become deft, first, at ignoring them and then physically blocking them when needed.
At movie theaters[1]Ads and trailers, not including those that play before the lights dim, often play for 20+ minutes. I bring something to read (the phone as a fall back) and do so until the trailers begin.
The trailers are their own form of adverts but I make an on-the-spot decision regarding them. If they have true value to me I watch them; if I deem them junk I stay in my phone, controlling the content I take in.
Elsewhere, on my devices, where I might watch a YouTube video or sports highlights, I check the run time of the pending ad, turn my volume off and scroll down on the page so the ad detritus is no longer visible.[2]I’m grateful for the Skip Ads >l option that appears after a mere five seconds in YouTube videos. If necessary I place my hand over the portion of the screen with the ad; I don’t want it even in my periphery. When it’s finished I return to the desired content.
On my tv DVR is a godsend as it allows me to fast forward through the ads. For live events when the commercials start I turn off the volume and leave the room. Sometimes I pause it so I’m always a little behind and can therefore fast forward as needed. It sill feels live enough.
While reading web content whenever possible I click the Reader mode icon in the upper left of my browser’s URL bar.
When passing through ad heavy corridors like Times Square (pictured) or the Sunset Strip I look at people, shops and of course the road instead.
The benefits
We talk a great deal about what we put into our bodies. An industry unto itself with increasing billions is attached to it.
Our concern needs to go beyond our bodies. We need to talk about what we put into our minds as that shapes us even more than the physical.
What we put in the mind becomes the assumptions and the proclivities that in turn help inform, for instance, what we put into our bodies.
We have limited brain capacity and a limited amount of energy that our brains will allow us to use for certain things. Do we want to use it for __________, or would it feel better to use it for __________?
It’s up to each of us to fill in the blanks.