Ubiquitous Advertising: Boon or Bane?

Ubiquitous advertising seems to be an accepted concept of our lives. Consumerism is rampant in our society and advertising only adds to that. People are exposed to advertising on TV, in newspapers, magazines, on the internet, in cinemas and even on billboards. Because of these constant reminders to buy, buy, buy, it is no wonder that people are brainwashed into becoming materialistic and uneconomical spenders.

Image via Wikipedia

An astronomical amount is spent on advertising each year. In 2007, over 13 billion dollars was spent on advertising in Australia alone. This money could be much better spent on improving the environment, helping the homeless or other numerous worthwhile ventures, rather than encouraging constant spending.

Advertising may also have a negative impact on today’s youth. Junk food ads encourage children to eat unhealthy food, which is often portrayed as fun. Children are also being encouraged to become needy consumers early in life, as they see something on an ad and pester their parents to buy it for them.

Image via Wikipedia

However, advertising is also very beneficial to us. It provides a way for services to be provided either free of charge or at a cheaper price in exchange for viewing some ads. For example, we would have to pay for all television if we didn’t look at ads. Also, you would be charged for using sites such as myspace, facebook and google if they weren’t allowed to show advertisements.

Advertising is also used to fund sites such as freerice.org which when people play word games on their site, they use money from advertisements shown while people are playing to donate rice to hungry people.

Overall, I believe that advertising has both benefits and disadvantages. However I believe that in most cases the benefits outweigh the disadvantages, being able to watch TV for free and to use sites like google and myspace for free are definitely worth sitting through a few ads. I do believe that ads should be more strictly monitored, especially during children’s viewing hours. Harsher penalties should apply to people who breach any laws and more people should be hired to patrol exactly what is played on ads.