The environmental cost of consumerism fueled by manipulation.
Advertising is everywhere. From billboards on highways to ads that pop up on our smartphones, we’re surrounded by messages designed to make us want things. Advertising serves a useful purpose: it helps businesses sell their products, and it helps consumers find what they’re looking for. But when you dig deeper, it becomes clear that advertising is not just about matching products with needs. It’s about creating needs that didn’t exist before and driving a cycle of consumption harmful to our well-being and the environment.
Dopamine Hacking
Advertising is about persuasion. But the kind of persuasion that modern advertising employs goes far beyond rational arguments. It taps into our emotions using techniques to hack our brain’s dopamine system. Dopamine is the neurotransmitter that’s often referred to as the “feel-good” chemical. It plays a major role in how we experience pleasure, reward, and motivation. Advertisers know this, and they’ve become experts at triggering dopamine releases in our brains.
When you see an ad that makes you feel excited or happy, that’s not an accident. It’s carefully crafted content designed to stimulate your dopamine receptors. This creates a feeling of anticipation or desire that can only be satisfied by buying the advertised product. But here’s the catch: the pleasure you get from buying something is usually short-lived. As soon as the dopamine rush fades, you’re left with the same feelings of inadequacy or boredom that you had before. And so the cycle continues—you buy more, chasing that fleeting moment of happiness, but it never lasts.
Remember products like the Pet Rock, Shake Weight, Snuggie, Flowbee, Fushigi Magic Gravity Ball, Bic For Her Pens, or nearly every "As Seen on TV" bauble? They sold in huge quantities, not because of any real utility value but because of clever dopamine-hacking advertising.
The Hedonic Treadmill
This cycle of buying and temporary happiness is what psychologists call the “hedonic treadmill.” The idea is that as we acquire more and more things, our baseline level of happiness doesn’t increase. We might feel a brief surge of joy when we buy a new gadget or a new pair of shoes, but soon enough, we adapt to the new normal, and the happiness fades. To get that feeling back, we have to buy something else, and then something else again. It’s a never-ending cycle of consumption.
Advertising ensures we stay on this treadmill. It constantly reminds us of what we don’t have, making us envious of others who seem to have it all. Social media, in particular, has amplified this effect. Platforms like Facebook and Instagram are saturated with ads tailored to our interests and insecurities. We see influencers living their #bestlife, and we’re led to believe that if we just buy what they’re selling, we, too, can achieve happiness.
But in reality, the more we buy, the less satisfied we become. Our homes fill up with things we don’t need, our storage units overflow, and eventually, much of what we’ve bought ends up in the trash. This isn’t just a problem for our well-being—it’s a problem for the planet as well.
The Advertising Industry
The driving force behind this cycle of overconsumption is the advertising industry. Companies like Google and Facebook have built their entire business models around advertising revenue. They offer free services, but the real product they’re selling is us—our attention, our data, and our purchasing power. These companies use sophisticated algorithms to track our online behavior and target us with ads tailored to our individual preferences and vulnerabilities.
The advertising narrative usually goes something like this: "You're inadequate/imperfect/incomplete as you are. But you could fix all that and be like these happy/beautiful/healthy people living a marvelous life. All you need to do is buy this!"
It’s not just tech giants that are in on the game. There are thousands of marketing and advertising firms whose sole purpose is to help businesses sell more stuff. These companies employ psychologists, data scientists, and creative professionals to craft ads that are as persuasive as possible. The result is a relentless barrage of messages that tell us we’re not good enough as we are but that we can buy our way to happiness.
The Environmental Toll
The environmental cost of our consumerism is staggering. Every product we buy has a lifecycle involving raw materials extraction, manufacturing, transportation, and, eventually, disposal. Each of these stages has a significant impact on the environment.
Take a simple smartphone, for example. The materials used to make it include rare metals mined in countries like the Democratic Republic of Congo, often under horrific working conditions. The manufacturing process involves factories that consume massive amounts of energy and produce significant pollution. Then there’s the transportation—shipping products around the world burns fossil fuels, contributing to air pollution and climatic effects.
And what happens when we’re done with these products? Many of them end up in landfills, where they can take centuries to decompose and leach toxins into the ground and water. Some are shipped to developing countries, where they are dismantled in dangerous conditions, exposing workers to toxic chemicals.
The sheer volume of waste generated by our consumerist habits is unsustainable. It’s estimated that the world produces over 2 billion tons of waste each year, and that number is only growing. The more we buy, the more waste we create and the more strain we put on our planet’s finite resources.
Is It Worth It?
Given the environmental and personal costs of advertising-fueled overconsumption, we have to ask ourselves: is it worth it? Do the benefits of advertising—helping businesses grow and helping consumers find what they’re looking for—outweigh the harm it does to our well-being and the planet?
On one hand, advertising is an integral part of our economy. It helps new businesses get off the ground, creates jobs, and drives innovation. On the other hand, the current model of advertising focused on driving consumption at all costs is unsustainable.
No Straightforward Solution
So, what can we do about it? One potential solution is to shift away from the current model of consumerism and selling more stuff at all cost. This could involve promoting products that are built to last rather than those that are designed to be replaced after a short period of time. It could also involve encouraging people to buy less and to focus on experiences rather than things.
This is of course difficult in an economic system that values GDP and revenue growth above all. Businesses that don't advertise will have to rely on organic search. That is, customers having a need strong enough to seek out their product deliberately. But the search engines have an incentive to deliver paid results first, giving search traffic to the highest bidders. So businesses are stuck in a Prisoner's Dilemma, where the first one to cut back on advertising (cooperate) loses out to the competition. Thus, a perpetual cycle of increasing advertising budgets and persuasive messaging continues. The only real winners are the Googles and Facebooks of the world. If businesses somehow were to escape the advertising arms race, they could spend those dollars on better product design, better service, higher profits, higher employee wages, or lower customer prices.
Another solution is to regulate the advertising industry more strictly. This could involve limiting the kinds of techniques that advertisers are allowed to use.
Businesses need to sell their products to stay afloat and benefit employees, owners, investors, and customers. Hopefully, they build quality products designed to last. If they decide to advertise, they should consider the specific customer whose life will be improved by purchasing their product and not attempt to sell stuff to anyone strictly to boost sales. Considering the ethics of ad messaging is paramount for companies to avoid perpetuating feelings of inadequacy and overconsumption.
Imagine a world without advertising. You'd be able to drive down the road without billboards and cheap signage, and you could surf the internet or social media or watch a YouTube video for content you want to read/see/watch rather than being bombarded with ads to buy more and more things. You would only seek to make a purchase when you have a strong enough need for something, not when some ad agency successfully hacks your primitive emotions. Would this be a bad thing?
Finally, we, as consumers, need to become more aware of how we’re being manipulated. By understanding how advertising works, we can start to make more conscious decisions about what we buy and why we’re buying it.
Advertising isn’t going away anytime soon. But if we can find a way to harness its power for good rather than allowing it to drive us towards ever-increasing consumption, we might be able to create a more sustainable future—for ourselves and for the planet.
Questions we can ask ourselves before making a purchase:
What specific problem will this solve for me?
Do I already own something similar that can serve the same purpose?
Will I use this product regularly, or is it something I’ll use only occasionally?
Is it well-made and likely to last a long time?
Am I buying this because it’s on sale, or do I truly need it?
What materials are used to make this product, and how sustainable are they?
What is the carbon footprint associated with its production and delivery?
How long will this product last, and what will happen to it when I’m done with it?
Did I want this product before I saw the ad campaign?
Am I buying this to keep up with others or to satisfy a perceived need created by advertising?
Am I buying this to fulfill an emotional need, such as stress or boredom?
Will this purchase bring me lasting satisfaction, or is it likely to provide only a temporary boost in happiness?
Is this an impulse purchase, or have I taken time to consider it?
A year from now, will I still value this purchase as much as I think I do now?
Questions for you:
What are your feelings about advertising? Is it a necessary evil? Necessary public good?
How would our economic system work without advertising?
Is it a net positive or negative for personal well-being and the environment?
Would you prefer to pay to use social media and search engines if they didn't serve you ads?
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