@ tannin
"who amongst us even sees the ads? We filter them out. We flick past them. We pull out the advertising supplement sections and put them to one side, ready to discard. We turn the pages past the full-page ads and, five minutes later, or even five seconds later, don't even know what the thing we filtered out was."
People wouldn't continue to purchase advertising if it didn't pay more. I'd be the last to argue that doing what you and I do naturally is unethical. But I'm less confident that there is no subliminal influence of these rapidly sensed images in aggregate upon our subconscious minds. Does being subjected to and rejecting nearly all of many thousands of sales pitches you can get in a day change the way you feel and relate to others ? I know the difference a day visiting the metropolis has compared to a electronics free day in the countryside upon my state of mind.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
