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Researchers find inverse correlation between advertising and life satisfaction

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Re: Researchers find inverse correlation between advertising and life satisfaction

#71

Post by brenden2 »

andyjsong wrote: post #42
logjammin wrote: post #5

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 p…

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

I've always preferred taking 280 over 101, because of the view and perception of being in nature. I never thought about the billboards, but now that you mention it that must also be part of the reason it's more enjoyable.

Re: Researchers find inverse correlation between advertising and life satisfaction

#72

Post by 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?

Re: Researchers find inverse correlation between advertising and life satisfaction

#73

Post by 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?

Re: Researchers find inverse correlation between advertising and life satisfaction

#74

Post by taurath »

tombert wrote: post #39

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 de…

It’s to get rid of the shame he feels about having an older inferior phone, frequently from peers who’ve been exposed to advertising

Re: Researchers find inverse correlation between advertising and life satisfaction

#75

Post by 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.

Re: Researchers find inverse correlation between advertising and life satisfaction

#76

Post by Erlich_Bachman »

xtracto wrote: post #8

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 watchin…

Isn't this the desired behavior of a complicated consciousness?

I always thought that being real, as in being in contact with reality, knowing what is going on - is one of the main characteristic of a quality consciousness, as opposed to an inferior one which is lost in it's own illusions. So then of course a good consciousness could react (including emotionally) to a different landscape of reality? To new information about what reality is, what is possible in life, what activities can be done, what experiences to be had etc? This is by design and the desired behavior, no?

Also I don't think that happiness is in such direct linear correlation to this, despite of some anecdotes - there are a plenty of rich unhappy people (who know that they are the richest on the planet, who know they have it good, because on TV they see people doing less interesting things).

Re: Researchers find inverse correlation between advertising and life satisfaction

#77

Post by JohnFen »

nickelcitymario wrote: post #68
JohnFen wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

> 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…

> 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.

Re: Researchers find inverse correlation between advertising and life satisfaction

#78

Post by 7sigma »

eloff wrote: post #33
xtracto wrote: post #8

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 watchin…

Another example, Apartheid South Africa got TV in 1976, six months later the riots started, coincidence? I think as soon as black people in South Africa could see how black people in America lived, they truly realized how bad they had it. Here it contributed to the undoing of an unjust government, so it's not always a force for evil. I think the most dangerous thing to North Korea is western media. I know the South K…

I heard of a similar story from my history teacher, but with eastern block and the show Dallas. From what I remember authorities were hoping that it would show the decadence of the west, but I think people mainly saw the higher living standards.

Re: Researchers find inverse correlation between advertising and life satisfaction

#79

Post by Erlich_Bachman »

throwawaymath wrote: post #63
xtracto wrote: post #8

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 watchin…

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…

> 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.

Re: Researchers find inverse correlation between advertising and life satisfaction

#80

Post by throwawaymath »

4ntonius8lock wrote: post #72

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 advertisi…

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.

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