Is Advertising Good For Society?

Every single day we turn on the TV or read the newspaper and we see advertisements all over the place. These are products that people try and sell by persuading us to buy them. According to an online source, an average American watches 1550 hour of TV, listens to 1160 hours on the radio, and spends 290 hours reading newspapers and magazines. So every day a person watches atleast 100 TV advertisements and almost 50 phone calls a year from telemarketers. In my opinion, I think that despite all of the annoyances and commercials on TV, without advertising, we would not know of the "great deals" that we could get. Yes, advertisements are designed to sell and make money, but they are also designed to inform the public. For example, if there is a huge sale going on at Navy I would probably go there if I saw an ad rather than to another store that has higher prices. But, advertisements can trick people into thinking that their product is "different" and "better" than other people's products, when in fact it is indeed the same thing. I think that the one true benefit of advertisements toward the consumer are that they communicate sales. Other than that, advertising can be bad because they can influence kids who do not know the real truth behind things.