We need technology that is less immersive, not more

In advertising's case, it's such a huge industry because it works. It moves the needle on purchasers' decisions. You can make it work a little less well on yourself with a few mental habits: never buy on impulse, don't save your credit cards, put time and distance between yourself and the purchase decision, have a rigorous self-directed research process before you open your wallet, learn to skip or tune out ads, go for paid media instead of ad-supported media, etc. And you can make it work for you by taking the other side of trade and getting paid when other people click on ads. But there are 8B+ humans who you don't control, and they will do what they want to do.

So I don't know, there's definitely such a thing as immersive experiences that are harmful, but I think for educational purposes more immersive experiences are strictly better than less immersive ones. (Provided that you want to learn as fast as possible and you want to focus on learning.) Now, immersive experiences are also more expensive (especially to get right) than less immersive ones, so cost is a factor but I think we definitely want more immersive education.

To rein this in a bit, here's how I'm defining this: regularly "choosing" to interact with a library of content and experiences that are all engineered to evoke certain emotional responses from me as the user and get me to buy more things or change my beliefs. I put choosing in quotes because once a habit loop is established, the behavior is indistinguishable from an addiction and the choice is similar to the one made by a gambler sitting at a slot machine.

Listening to the radio, watching TV and talking to a friend all provide external stimuli. But clearly there are aspects of each of these interactions that makes them unique.

When I'm talking to my friend, I usually don't have to wonder if the things they're saying are only meant to influence my purchasing decisions, or change how I see a political candidate, or support a particular world view, etc. Some friends are good influences. Some bad. If you choose to hang around the stoner who always wears you down and gets you to smoke a joint, that particular friend might not be a good influence.

> How could you live your life without allowing other entities to feed you stimuli?

I'm not suggesting that this is possible or even desired. I'm suggesting that there are certain sources of stimuli that we deem unacceptable that are strikingly similar to stimuli that we deem acceptable and that it's not clear why we categorize them so differently.

In other words: If you would say "hell no" to a physically connected chip that feeds your brain ads for products you don't need every hour, why would you not say "hell no" to a device that could do the same thing without even needing a physically connected chip? (I'm saying this as a person who carries one of those devices, so I'm not a Luddite or claiming to have avoided anything).

> How are these examples different from what your phone is doing?

There are a myriad of differences, but I think they boil down to these key things: Ubiquity, Tracking and Personalization.

Billboards (which are ugly and often the source of controversy in communities) do not know who you are, and they are not in your pocket every minute of the day. They don't insert themselves into the middle of your interactions with friends, or follow you home.

> And don't say "notifications": you have far more control over which notifications you receive than which billboards you see.

I disagree with the premise of this objection, but notifications are only a small part of this. Most people don't turn notifications off, and app makes know this. There is a finite number of billboards you can fit on any given stretch of road, and there is an infinite number of notifications you can be subject to regardless of where you are on any given day.

Yes, you can disable notifications, and I think this is one of the simplest things people can do to interrupt the addiction loop. But many of the most popular apps carefully construct notifications that get you into the app for plausible reasons (comments on your post!) so they can then feed you the algorithmic payload.

> If I could implant a chip in my brain that allowed me to tune into any radio station I wanted and listen to it in my brain, I'd probably do that, assuming it's safe and actually under my control. I'm not seeing the dichotomy here.

I think that "assuming it's safe and actually under my control" is exactly where the radio and social media examples diverge. The point is that much of the content on social media is not safe, and you have less and less choice about what you actually see. With radio, you probably wouldn't choose to listen to the channel that airs Rush Limbaugh 24/7. With algorithmic feeds, you don't really get to choose what you see.

So... that's not blame? Is "businesses only do this because you tell them to, with money, so stop telling them to if you don't like it" not the intended reading of that?

My point is that the modern advertising industry is better classed as a result of large-scale structures and societal-scale rules, the same way bread lines were, than as something explained by consumer choice. I mean, FFS, the point of it is to influence consumer choice. This is like saying if the gas pedal doesn't want the car to go faster, it should stop getting pushed so much.