Advertising is an integral part of modern world, which we simply cannot imagine without advertising. It surely has its pros and cons. All in all, I believe advertising is a bad thing, the world would be a so much better place without it. But it would be very naïve and stupid not to understand that modern world can’t do without it. The whole economic system is inseparably linked with advertising.

So what is so bad about advertising? First of all, it makes people stupid, to put it shortly. It cultivates consumer philosophy; it creates desire for more and more material possessions, for some totally unnecessary products; it fills up people’s minds with tons of garbage; it creates an image of some ever-looming happiness, which will never come true, forever being just a chimera, leaving people with frustration, desolation and alienation. There hasn’t been a shortage of ink spent to cover this topic since as early as the 50s. Many great writers contributed to this—Simone de Bauvoir, Jerome D. Salinger, Don DeLillo, Douglas Copeland, Victor Pelevin and Chuck Palahniuk—to name a few.

Speaking about the positive aspects of advertising we should mention that some ads are quite amusing, sometimes even more amusing than most of the TV shows (I personally prefer ads of cars and juices, cause they usually feature some nice music and good-looking women). Ads stimulate competition between companies, thus keeping prices down. Ads create consumer awareness, giving information about a range of products. Ads in newspapers and magazines keep their cost down. We wouldn’t be able to watch many of our favorite TV shows without advertising. And last but not least advertising gives jobs and money to lots of bright, young, talented, creative and well-educated people.

So what do we do? I think we should just try to ignore the advertising to minimize its harmful effect on our health.