Most people are aware of the dangers of distracted driving — it accounts for up to 13% of car accidents in the U.S. every year, per the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. This means thousands of people are killed — and many more injured — unnecessarily.
Despite this knowledge, many brands still advertise in ways that are distracting for drivers. One person posted on Reddit about some particularly egregious examples they saw in Malaysia.
"Am I the only one who finds the amount of ads on the streets is getting ridiculous?" they wrote. "The giant billboards blocking the views, the animated ads on each bridge, MRT, and now those moving ads on top of grab cars. Don't we have enough ads online that we are facing more ads offline which we can't block?"
They included photos of two car-mounted displays: A flashing digital billboard and some enormous plastic cosmetic products.
"Seems like every spot can be rented out for an advertisement," the Reddit user lamented.
Fellow Redditors were similarly stunned by the audacity of the ads.
"That monitor flat side facing front," one person wrote, adding a mind-blown emoji. "Unless the car is limited to only low speed, that's an accident waiting to happen."
The original poster agreed, pointing out that they also worry about the physical dangers: "Honestly falling trees aren't the only risk nowadays, I've seen those giant boards fighting the winds several times."
This issue isn't limited to Malaysia; car- and truck-mounted digital screens have been causing concern worldwide. Similarly, ads placed everywhere — from public bathrooms to inside fortune cookies — make people feel like nowhere is safe from the ever-present pressures of consumerism.
"Just wait till they figure out holograms to put ads in the night sky," one commenter mused wryly.
Another echoed the sentiment, saying: "Welcome to the dystopia."
Advertising is widely known to be negatively associated with mental and emotional well-being, as it creates unrealistic beauty standards and invites feelings of dissatisfaction to prompt people to purchase more items.
It promotes a culture of overconsumption, which is the major driving force behind the massive amounts of pollution from waste and human activities. This pollution is causing our planet's temperature to skyrocket.
Instead, opting to buy only necessary products — and even then, only buying them secondhand — can help to incentivize companies to move away from irresponsible practices like this and implement more circular, planet-friendly business models.
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