Saturday, 2 October 2021
Most people understand that air pollution — the exhaust fumes from cars or foul smoke belching from factory chimneys, for instance — has a detrimental effect not only on the Planet, but on our health too. Yes, our lungs are arguably our most vulnerable organs when we breathe in dirty air, but our brains, also, are affected by what we absorb through our nose and skin.
What has not been talked about until now, is what is known as brain pollution. This contamination, however, is not carried on the air, but like air it is all around us. It's advertising! Think about it. Whenever you walk down a city street your senses are bombarded by it. Brands shouting — metaphorically — from shop fronts, from billboards above stores, from advertising hoardings built for the purpose and even from the walls of derelict buildings. Lights from tower blocks and shopping centres endlessly flash well-known names at you as you pass. Impossible to ignore. They penetrate our vision and consciousness even when we're not actively thinking about brands or materialistic things. The stimulus of this unceasing barrage of advertising causes havoc in our brains. Homo sapiens are not made to cope with such high concentrations of visual and mental stimulation without respite. The brain needs time to absorb and process what the eyes see. If there is too much it can lead to health problems, everything from visual disturbances to depression, as well as more serious mental instability. The result of this assault of advertising is brain pollution.
Advertising urges us to buy into the latest fads, follow the latest trends and purchase the latest gadgets on the market. The aim is to convince us that we cannot do without this 'stuff', these brands that are supposedly so cool and desirable, as I have already discussed in a previous post. Advertisers depend on our positive response to what we see on billboards, on TV or in the media. If reaction is mostly negative the advert is deemed to have failed to do its job.
In manufacturing these highly sought-after items, which advertisers try to make us believe are so delectable, factories up and down the land discharge high levels of carbon emissions. As the infectious diseases specialist and television presenter, Dr Chris Van Tulleken explains:
"The brain pollution of advertising creates not just the high-carbon lifestyles feeding the climate emergency, but also a wave of commerciogenic diseases ranging from malnutrition to depression. Yet this is one of the least talked about and understood aspects of the climate and public health crises."
The more people become preoccupied with gadgets and materialistic goals and values, the less they care about how their materialism affects the environment. The development of digital technology has created an entirely new market, called the 'attention economy', in which advertisers treat human attention as a commodity to be competed for.
The advertising market is growing exponentially. What it, like the consumers it targets, doesn't take into account is that by promoting overconsumption and people's desire for superfluous, non-essential goods it is contributing significantly to the destruction of the Planet. The most damaging advertisers are, of course, those in the motoring, aviation and energy industries. There is a lot of greenwashing going on in all of these. It has been suggested that governments and local authorities should call for an end to high-carbon advertising. The process for removing harmful adverts is, however, extremely cumbersome. Since there is currently no adequate legislation in place it relies entirely on people's willingness to take action. Until something more is done by those who have the power to influence law-makers and governments we are destined to continue being victims to brain pollution.
