• I tracked all the ads I saw in a day and counted over 130.
• Some ad settings can be adjusted, but control over frequency remains limited across many platforms.
• I didn't mind most ads because they either catered to my interests or were easy to tune out.

Ads have become so embedded in everyday activities and media consumption that you may not even notice how often you run into them.

When my editor asked me to track all the ads I saw in a day, I wasn't sure how it would go. Prior to this experiment, I hadn't paid close attention to how often an ad or sponsored content floated before my eyes.

While the words "sponsored" may show up on a video or image you scroll past on social media, the font is often small and if the content is successfully targeting you, you may not even notice.

I missed a few ads during this process, especially on sites where I was focused on getting the answer I was searching for. But based on what I did catch, I spotted over 130 ads in a single day.

Let's dive in.

Your settings can (sometimes) make a difference

The type of ads you receive may be adjustable in your settings. But for most platforms, you won't be able to control how many you see.

To personalize Google ads, for example, you can go to "My Ad Center" and opt to turn personalized ads on or off in the top-right corner. If you turn them on, Google will use the information it collects about you to give you more personalized ads. That means your activity on Google sites and apps will be saved in your Google Account and information from your account, like your age, will also be used.

I decided to keep personalized ads off for Google because that's how I usually have it. This resulted in me sometimes missing ads on my screen. I'm so used to seeing random photos and brand names in the corners and sides of my screen that my eyes glazed over some of them. It drew a sharp contrast to my experience with social media ads, which are fully personalized to my activity on and off-site and often pull my attention.

When it comes to social media, you don't have as much of a choice — although some do let you pay to remove or decrease ads. Facebook now offers a paid version in the EU for people who prefer an ad-free experience, YouTube lets you pay for Premium to remove them, and Elon Musk's X says paying for X Premium+ means no ads in your For You or Following feeds.

But TikTok, for example, says on its website that "you will always see ads based on what you do on TikTok." But you can provide feedback on an ad if you're not interested in it. Other social media sites have similar ad policies.

With TikTok, Instagram, and most apps that you download on your phone, you can turn off ad-tracking across companies and websites in your privacy settings.

My social media feeds were filled with ads

I spent about two and a half hours on Instagram on the day of this experiment — and I saw about 75 ads.

I probably never went through more than four posts at a time without being interrupted by an ad. But most of the ads were similar to content I regularly engage with in my explore feed or online.

I find ads with multiple products and links particularly effective because it's easy to engage with them and find out pricing or other details. I also loved seeing sponsored food content because it gave me ideas of where to go out to eat.

None of the ads resulted in me purchasing any items, but if I continue to see interesting ads in my price range for weeks at a time, it may eventually influence my buying patterns.

For TikTok, the ads were even less noticeable because the app is so casual. For example, I would start watching a woman wipe down her counters and then see Mr. Clean at the end of the video before noticing the "sponsored" label at the bottom. I also found some of the TikTok ads interesting or helpful.

I didn't engage at all with internet ads

I tracked about 40 ads online, but since they weren't personalized to my interests I sometimes didn't notice them. I saw a range of ads from USPS to T-Mobile, to random shows on streaming services that I had no interest in.

Sometimes, they were images, and other times, they were full videos. I also saw a couple of ads on YouTube videos but usually skipped after a few seconds, so I didn't fully engage with those either.

Miscellaneous ads

I use the language-learning app Duolingo every day and those are the only ads I truly dread. The ads are animated with sound and I sometimes put my phone down and walk away because of how painful it feels to watch.

I also saw about 10 ads in real life on the subway on my way to and from work. By the end of the day, I noticed these less, but in general, they tend to stick out more than non-targeted ads on the internet.

I also receive several push notifications and ads over text every day. I counted about seven on the day of this experiment, including a push notification from Urban Outfitters about a flash sale, a text from CorePower Yoga for discounted class packs, and a push notification from Amazon about trending sunscreen.

Most of the ads don't bother me

My biggest takeaway from this experiment was that I really didn't mind the ads. In fact, sometimes I liked them.

I love online shopping and browsing — and I like that apps like Instagram curate content to my interests. I've discovered new brands on Instagram that I ended up ordering from because of ads. Even if it doesn't lead to a purchase, I enjoy seeing items that fall in my line of interest and inspire me to look at similar products.

The push notifications and the texts were probably the most annoying of all the ads I received, and I find myself deleting them on a daily basis.

I also don't follow too many influencers, but I immediately scrolled past content if I saw it labeled with "creator earns commission" or if it included a discount code in the caption because I'm not interested in paid content from someone I follow for enjoyment.

As far as Duolingo's ads go, yes, I find them annoying — but I also wouldn't pay $12.99 per month to get rid of them.

It's clear that we're seeing more and more ads on our phones and TV screens — Netflix and Amazon recently introduced ads to their streaming services, although both offer ad-free options for an extra cost.

Luckily, I'm on my roommate's plan for Netflix, and my family has an Amazon and Spotify subscription, so I don't have to deal with these. I sometimes watch Hulu shows and the ads are annoying, but I usually walk away if an ad comes on.

For me, watching or listening to an ad is the most frustrating, and I would definitely be bothered if I was constantly interrupted by them. When I was growing up, I found radio commercials unbearable, and I might have paid for an ad-free option if I still had to go through those several-minute interruptions.

But the honest answer is I'm used to ads by now, and even find some genuinely interesting. We're living in an advertising world — and if I have to deal with sponsored content for clothing brands I like while scrolling on social media — then so be it.

• Job hunting these days can be daunting, and veteran career coach Shari Santoriello knows it.
• But instead of trying to reinvent the wheel for each job you apply to, the search can be simpler.
• Here are Santoriello's top tips for streamlining your job search to make the process less miserable.

Job hunting can be daunting — miserable, even.

And in the age of AI, where it seems like even sending out hundreds of applications won't guarantee your résumé will ever be reviewed by a hiring manager, it's easy to get discouraged.

Career coach Shari Santoriello, who has been working in the industry for 25 years, knows it; she sees it all the time. So when her clients come to her asking how to streamline their job hunt and make the process easier but still optimized to draw the most eyes, she's a wealth of knowledge.

Here are three tips she gives her clients to make their job search simpler.

Create a résumé vault

Sometimes, we think of a résumé as being set in stone, when Santoriello says it's a dynamic piece of material for a job seeker — it should be flexible and adaptable for every job you're applying for. She noted that nobody likes to hear that, but you can make it easier for yourself by creating what some people call a résumé vault or master résumé.

Your résumé vault is a living document listing all your past jobs and accomplishments that you can select from. So, when you create a résumé for a particular role, instead of creating a new résumé from scratch, just make a copy of your résumé vault and delete everything that isn't relevant based upon the job description.

"When you ask yourself the question: what do you leave? What do you cut? Highlight those things that make you distinctive with regard to what the job description is asking for," Santoriello told Business Insider. "You may have something really cool in your background, but if it's not relevant to this role, you don't want to take up your precious real estate on your résumé with something that isn't going to be relevant to the hiring manager."

On average, Santoriello estimates, job seekers have roughly five seconds when a hiring manager looks at their résumé. So you want to ensure they can see what impact, value, and contribution you bring to the team in those five seconds.

One of the best ways to do that when you're talking about what to keep and what to lose is you want to keep things that show results. Keep words like increased, decreased, drove revenue, successfully, efficiently, and streamlined.

"Any of those action language words that lets the reader immediately see you've done something," Santoriello said. "And put them at the front of the sentence, we don't want to bury it in the far right side of a sentence."

Learn the language of hiring managers in your industry

This comes in especially handy when considering a career change and trying to describe your transferrable skills in a new industry, according to Santoriello.

"When you write your résumé toward the new industry, you want to use the industry specific language," Santoriello said. "This is about showing them — not telling, showing them — that you understand how your skill transfers and use that language to support that. It doesn't mean that the 15 years you've spent in tech aren't relevant now that you want to go into medical research. There's probably a whole lot of skill there that's relevant. We just need to formulate it and put it in the language that the new industry understands."

She noted that this is where a career coach really can help, but when it comes to describing the language of your chosen industry, it's time to "play with your best friend Google."

"And when I say play, I mean play, have fun. Go down rabbit holes, do the research, spend the time getting lost reading articles on LinkedIn," Santoriello said. "Join groups specific to where you want to go — both digital and face-to-face if that's your thing. Check out trade associations. There's so much information available today. When I'm working with my members, I say this to them: 'It's scavenger hunt time.' Let's find the stuff and then compare it to what you already have in place so that we're presenting your best fit here."

Keep your network simmering

"If you wanted a forest, you needed to plant a tree 20 years ago, but today would be OK, too," Santoriello told BI.

The truth is, she said, there's no bad time to be reaching out to friends and past, present, or prospective colleagues to set up informational interviews or networking lunches.

"We as human beings, people in the professional workplace, tend to not realize the value of building connections all the time — that's not a place you want to stagnate," Santoriello said. "You want to be building your connection base regularly.

Santoriello swears by the value of staying in touch with someone you played soccer with in fourth grade. Each and every person won't be a valuable connection each and every day — and, let's be realistic, you're not keeping in touch with the one person that you really didn't care for — but maintaining cordial relationships will come in handy when you least expect them, and sometimes when you need them most.

"I'm not saying be the person who has a Rolodex of 97,000 people but doesn't have a real relationship with anybody," Santoriello said. "I'm talking about the value of building real relationships over time, without always having an ulterior motive, just for the sake of building those relationships over time. And ideally, you're doing that now. The best time really is anytime it's comfortable for you to do that."

• The anti-obesity drug market will be worth $130 billion by 2030, Goldman Sachs said.
• New products such as Eli Lilly's Zepbound prompted the bank to raise its forecast.
• The FDA approved the pharma giant's new weight-loss drug in November.

The market for weight-loss drugs such as Ozempic and Wegovy will keep surging due to new products including Eli Lilly's Zepbound, according to Goldman Sachs.

In a research note the bank forecast that the sector will be worth $130 billion by 2030 — $30 billion higher than its previous projection.

Eli Lilly and Danish giant Novo Nordisk will remain the dominant players with a combined market share of 80% by the end of the decade, said a team of analysts led by Chris Shibutani.

Shares in both companies have racked up big gains since the start of 2023 following rising demand for anti-obesity drugs.

Eli is now valued at $775 billion — far more than Tesla's $550 billion market cap, following a 37% surge this year.

Shibutani's team cited the new Lilly drug Zepbound, which was approved by the Food and Drug Administration in November, and the expansion of the FDA label for Novo's Wegovy as "key events" that had led to Goldman raising its forecast.

When it reported first-quarter results in April, Lilly cited strong demand for Zepbound and other drugs like Mounjaro, Verzenio, and Jardiance as the driving force behind a 26% rise in revenues to $8.77 billion.

The Indianapolis-based company said last month it would double its investment in a manufacturing plant to increase production of the drug, which can treat sleep apnea as well as obesity.

Goldman Sachs also raised its forecast for how many US adults are expected to take drugs for chronic weight-loss management from 15 million to 19 million, excluding patients being prescribed the medication to treat Type-2 diabetes.

• Learning how Google Photos works can go a long way towards optimizing your photo storage.
• Google Photos lets you store, share, view, and edit photos and videos, and has additional AI tools.
• Google Photos users have access to 15GB of free storage, but can pay to upgrade their accounts.

Launched in 2015, Google Photos is Google's service for storing and sharing photos and videos.

It's a solid media backup system to have at your disposal. And, because it's a cloud-based tool, it can free up space on your phone. Plus, it works on both Android and iOS devices, as well as on your desktop computer.

Here's what to know about how Google Photos works, and how to get started:

How does Google Photos work?

Google Photos users can upload new photos and videos, and they can view, edit, save and create new videos, animations, collages, albums and photos books. Users can also download everything, meaning your cloud-based backup can itself be easily backed up onto your computer or external hard drive.

Google Photos is completely private, and the pictures you upload are visible only to you. Once you share your photos with others, however, they will also have access.

How do I access my Google Photos on iPhone and Android?

It's easy to access Google Photos on any device. Here's how: 

1. Download Google Photos from the Google Play Store or iOS App Store.
2. Open the app and log in with your Google account.
3. Provide the permissions necessary to access your files and media in your phone's settings.

You can access all your stored photos in the Google Photos app. Open the Google Photos app on your iPhone, iPad, or Android and tap the photos icon in the lower-left corner on your screen. Here you will find all your memories.

How do I download all my photos from Google photos? 

Downloading every photo from Google Drive is simple, but the option isn't accessible in Google photos. 

Google Takeout lets you download data from any Google's services. You can do this on your mobile as well as your computer. 

Here's how: 

1. Go to Google Takeout 
2. Click Deselect all. This ensures you're not downloading data from your entire Google account. 

3. Check the box next to Google Photos, and click into "All photo albums included" if you want to choose which specific albums to download. Otherwise, Google Takeout will download everything in Google Photos.

4. Once you are happy with your selection, select Next step to export. 

Quick tip: in your export settings, you can choose how often you want to download your Google photos. 

5. Next, choose how you wish to download your photos. 

6. Next, confirm the file type and size of your exported file, and click Create export when you're ready.

Why can't I see all my Google Photos?

If you are unable to access all your photos, you may not have enabled the permissions for Google Photos to back up your photos automatically. 

Here's how you can check and fix the issue:

1. Open up the Google Photos app and tap on your profile picture in the top right corner.
2. Select Google Photo settings, then select Backup. 

3. Toggle the Backup button on to keep your photos backed up. 

Is Google Photos still free?

Google Photos has unfortunately ended its unlimited free storage policy.

Every Google account comes with 15GB of free cloud storage shared across Google Drives, Google Photos, and Gmail — so any new photos and videos you upload to Google Photos will count toward the free 15GB of storage. 

To add more storage and save your high-quality images, users can upgrade using the Google One subscription plan, starting at $1.99 per month for 100GB.

Quick tip: If your device is running low on storage, Google Photos may not display all your photos so ensure you have sufficient space for all your images. 

Google Photos features an AI-powered assistant

Like many of Google's products, Google Photos has begun enhancing its services with new AI tools. 

In May 2024, Google announced it would upgrade Google Photos to incorporate its Gemini AI model to make it even easier for users to search through their galleries for memories or details. A new feature called Ask Photos will let users ask broad queries like, "Show me the best photo from every city I've visited," and the tool will instantly pull together a series of relevant images from their galleries.

Google CEO Sundar Pichai demonstrated the feature at the Google I/O 2024 conference, asking the app, "What's my license plate number again?" The Ask Photos feature immediately provided a text response with the license plate number and a corresponding image.

Google Photos provides users with a lot of auto-generated extras, and additional AI editing tools will be available to all users without a subscription. 

Magic Eraser, PhotoUnblur, and Portrait light will allow users to make complex edits with simple actions, previously native to Android users. 

Historical features will remain. With Google Photos, you can also create photo-book collections, grouping together pictures based on factors like the date, people, and places featured. Users are given the option to print and ship those books (for a fee, of course).

The Assistant will also take photos that were captured in rapid succession and turn them into GIFs (referred to as "animations"), while individual photos can be saved as motion photos — meaning they record video of a few seconds before and after you've taken the shot. These may also be known as Live Photos to iPhone users.

Google Photos has other smart features

Like Google Images, Google's search engine for photos, Google Photos has a robust search option that serves as a major draw for the platform. It lets you search for generic subjects, like "dogs" or "beach" to narrow your options, which is especially useful if you haven't yet sorted your pictures into albums.

It also gives you the option to identify different people in your photos by manually putting a name to the face. After that, pictures with those people are automatically sorted so you can later search for pictures featuring specific people.

Similarly, you can also set it to create "live albums," which automatically populate with photos of friends and family members.

For those looking to backup their physical photo prints, you can quickly 'scan' those to have them uploaded by taking a quick pic using your phone or other Photos-friendly device. And for those who photograph paper documents, Google Photos also lets you highlight desired sections of text, and even crop out backgrounds to make it easier to do things like upload and expense a receipt from a work trip.

Google Photos is a powerful and versatile tool that requires little effort to use to its fullest. And, given the fact that it provides free, unlimited storage without sacrificing too much on photo and video quality, it can be a solid option for backing up your media files.

How to delete all photos from Google Photos

If you're frustrated by Google Photos' frequent reminders about purchasing more storage, you're not alone. Deleting mass quantities of photos from Google Photos — or even deleting your entire Google Photos account — is a hotly discussed topic on tech forums.

If you opt to delete Google Photos, proceed with caution: deleting batches of photos from the Google Photos mobile app will also delete them off your phone entirely — even in external storage applications like iCloud. Before you try deleting anything, make sure you remove Google Photos' access to your mobile device and native photo gallery.

On an iPhone, that process will look like this:

1. Go to Settings, and scroll down to Google Photos.
2. Under the menu that says "ALLOW GOOGLE PHOTOS TO ACCESS," tap Photos, then select None.

3. Then, open up your Google Photos app on your iPhone, and turn off Backup by going into Google Photos settings, then toggling Backup off.

Now, to actually delete your photos from Google Photos, you'll have to get a little creative. Google Photos doesn't make it easy to delete all your photos at once; there's no "select all" option to click.

Instead, you'll have to use a workaround — the easiest way is to open up Google Photos on your web browser:

1. In your Google Photos gallery, click on the grey checkmark at the top left-hand corner of your most recent batch of photos. The checkmark will automatically select all the photos from that date.

2. Scroll down to the very bottom of the gallery until you reach your very first photo. Hold down the Shift key on your keyboard, and click that first photo. You should now see all your photos selected (if you have a lot of photos, you may need to work with smaller batches, rather than deleting your whole photo gallery all at once).
3. Click the trash can icon in the top right-hand corner of the window, which will open up a pop-up warning. Click Move to trash.

4. You can always test this method out on a smaller batch before deleting your full Google Photos gallery.

• Poppi, a trendy soda touted by A-listers, contains prebiotics for gut health and low sugar content.
• A new class action lawsuit alleges the marketing for the viral drink is misleading consumers.
• The suit claims consumers would need to drink four sodas a day to experience health benefits.

If you tried Poppi prebiotic sodas in hopes that the trendy drinks — touted by A-listers like Kylie Jenner and J-Lo in social media posts — would help your gut health, you may have been misled, according to a new class action lawsuit.

"Prebiotics are a special type of fiber that can act as food for healthy bacteria in your gut," Poppi's website claims of its products. "Each can of poppi includes agave inulin, a prebiotic (and natural sweetener!) extracted from the agave tequilana plant."

However, the lawsuit, filed Wednesday, alleges the low-sugar, "gut-healthy" sodas contain such small amounts of prebiotic fiber (just 2 grams per serving) that the average consumer wouldn't experience any health benefits from drinking them.

"A consumer would need to drink more than four Poppi sodas in a day to realize any potential health benefits from its prebiotic fiber," the suit, which seeks $5,000,000 in financial damages, says. "However, even if a consumer were to do this, Poppi's high sugar content would offset most, if not all, of these purported gut health benefits."

The complaint goes on to say that an inulin-based diet could cause "inflammation and even liver damage" with doses as low as 10 grams per day and demands a jury trial to determine whether Poppi has broken the law with its advertisements.

Poppi's sodas, which have gone viral in the years since their 2018 appearance on "Shark Tank," sell for $2.49 a can through the manufacturer's website.

The colorful cans of apple cider vinegar-infused sodas have become so popular that the suit noted Forbes reporting from March that the brand sits at a 19% market share — more than 1.5x that of Coke products — and is the 11th-fastest growing beverage brand, beating out companies like Gatorade and Liquid Death.

Representatives for Poppi did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.