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Comment by ollien | Hacker News Reader

I haven't used an ad blocker in years. The short answer: you get used to it. Banner blindness is a real thing

I doubt you're completely "blind" to them, I strongly suspect that on some level you're still processing those images despite being unaware of them. Sometimes I catch myself thinking about things I've seen on billboards and other advertisements, despite consciously filtering those images out. It's quite invasive, really.

I wonder what impact they have on people's mental health.

When you hear something when you're sleeping, it gets memorized and analyzed for you. That's the basis of hypnosis and also the idea around which scientology started long ago. It can be used to program an individual, bypassing his critical thinking. Advertisements use the same trick to prime buyers to favor certain brands. If you doubt it, do a simple experiment: record yourself saying something and make the recording play back at night, when you're sleeping.

Might you explain /why/?

he works for ad company, is what crossed in my mind.

Hah, nope. Not my cup of tea :)

Maybe he does not surf websites with low-quality content.

Sorry for the late reply, I didn't think to check back on this :)

A couple reasons:

Back when I did use them, I got really bothered by sites breaking, and I'd rather have the ads than dealing with "is this broken because of my ad blocker or is the site broken". Now, I've just gotten to the point where I don't really mind.

The other part is there's enough content I consume that is supported by ads that I would like to continue supporting, without having to consciously opt into it (e.g. news sites; I don't want to pay a subscription for every newspaper but am happy to contribute to what little money they get from ads)

Not OP but I do something similar, because I know each ad I see costs someone $$$. This leads to odd behavior like making sure I let youtube ads play for their full duration and I'll usually click on sponsor links + their pages enough to trigger the first flag of a sales pipeline, ensuring the company responsible for the ad pays as much as possible for it.

And therefore you are rewarding and validating this behavior, so that content authors continue to pile on more and worse ads.

I sometimes browse my Google Discover feed on my phone, which I've set up to open articles in Firefox (on which I have an adblocker installed), and sometimes I browse my Google News Feed, which opens articles in its internal Chrome browser.

The difference in experience is striking. Random auto-playing videos that are stuck in the corner of your browser. Horizontally it takes up like half of my screen. It has an X button that either doesn't work, OR its hit box is just so tiny that you have to tap it multiple times to get it to actually close. Not to mention cookie banners that take up 20% of my vertical real estate.

Maybe you can get used to that shitty experience, but I certainly can't. I almost always just immediately open Google News articles in Firefox now.

Anyone who claims they are unaffected by advertising likely just understand how the human brain works. You aren't immune. No one is.

... likely doesn't understand... ?

There's research about it: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-fallible-mind/20...

There is certainly a difference in reaction though. There are people that cannot resist if you slap a percentage on something. It doesn't matter if they need it or the price is even good. There is something to save here and it is all that matters...

And it even affects people that should be adapt at math too.

Actually, I don't think I'm immune; I'm definitely affected by ads. But I definitely get used to seeing them and don't think about them actively. Sometimes I miss that they're even on a page.

Not everyone gets used to it.

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