I'm near the end of reading Blindsight[0] and coming around to the idea that they are also a necessary self-defence tool to try and stem the tide of things trying to take up real-estate in my brain.
You want to reference a Watts novel to make a point about adblocking software, wew buddy it's Maelstrom!
Without spoiling much of anything, the title refers to the contemporary name for the internet, given because the open net has become an insane jurassic-like free-for-all of digital virus on virus carnage. Basically people added genetic algorithms to their ad-blocker-blockers to make them be able to react in real time to updates in their opposition, and the result was the accidental creation of very dumb, very invasive-species-y digital life that is constantly infecting all the things. To point that people start training smart gels (think deep learning on synthetic neurons in a big cube of jello) to identify and destroy viruses. But that has its own drawbacks, of course!
While it is mostly crouched in terms of how marketing can exploit it, the discussion regarding the neurological ways your brain works is more interesting to me than the marketing aspects.
That does sound interesting; I'll check it out.