Social Media and Advertising

After viewing the video in class about subliminal messages last week, my mind was blown. I did not realize how much we are all influenced by the media around us on a daily basis. It is so much that it is to the point that we can't even recognize that we are being advertised to at some points. I just found the whole video fascinating, because as they were driving around town and passing all of these different signs, they were probably not thinking any thing about it. However, when they went inside to brainstorm for a new company, all of those things that they had seen previously on the drive over, were consistent throughout their advertising pitch. It is almost scary to me that we are influenced that much by our surroundings, and that we hardly even realize it anymore. It kind makes you think, how many original thoughts you really have of your own. Probably none, honestly. They all come from things we have seen whether we consciously realize it or not. I just found that to be very interesting.

Also, tying in with consumerism and the reading about how Facebook has grown in the past 10 years, I watched a documentary recently on social media websites. The documentary talked about how Facebook is able to use cookies to see things that you have googled recently or looked up, and Facebook is able to then advertise to you based on your interests. Facebook is able to get so much information from you it is ridiculously scary. For instance, right after I turned 21, which Facebook was aware of, because that information is on Facebook, all of the sudden all of the ads on my Facebook were about alcohol, and things of that nature. It is just really crazy how social media can be used to not only advertise to you, but advertise to you based on things that you are interested in because of google searches, or because of your age.