A thirty second difference.

Well, I was wondering about line ups the other day, thinking about folks lining up to buy the latest gadget or other.  I, personally, appreciate those folks because they make things cheaper for me.  They are willing to pay premium prices for having something first.  In our house, we just wait about a year or so and then buy the thing.  At one tenth the price.  Nice.

But I started to wonder, why?  Why the heck would folks be so desperate to have this little gadget?  Why do we suddenly need this so badly that we are willing to stand in line for hours and pay top dollar.  Makes no sense.  Okay.

The first thing that came to mind is the television because we are contemplating stuffing ours out the window --  partly because it would be fun to destroy the thing, partly because most of the programming is crap, but, also, partly because of those pesky slick, well-designed and produced thirty second spots between the crappy shows:  the commercials.  I hate that children are exposed to commercials.  I have always been plain about how a child needs a bit of protection against the media machine.  There is nothing more predatory than creative director trying to sell a child some crappy thing he or she doesn't need.

But here's a little tidbit:  The average Canadian watches about 25,000 commercials a year.  That's some number of days.  Days.  Per Year. Those little thirty second spots seem like nothing but it all adds up.

So it struck me.  Never mind the children, how can the adults stand it?  How can the average person stand up to that many messages telling her she's inadequate, needs to invest her money in mutual funds, buy a car, have a personal relationship with her mop?  How can we?

Well, we can't, of course.  Commercials are not there to inform.  They are designed to push emotional buttons that are hard wired into our psyche, emotional buttons that advertising execs have been counting on for decades.  See enough commercials and suddenly we desperately need an i-phone.  Those 'crazy' folks who stand in line to pay premium prices make way more sense to me if the sheer volume of TV advertising is factored into the equation.  And that's not even considering billboards and signage and ads in the subway....

Further, it's pretty clear that rampant consumerism is currently a part of western culture.  What is fueling that?  Couldn't be those eight days you watch commercials a year, eh?  Sure.  How much better would the world be if we didn't 'need' so much.  How much greener?  Cleaner?

It's not just the children who need a bit of a buffer from the media machine.  It's also the adults. Saving yourself thirty seconds might just save the world.