I’d have to pay closer attention to the ads if I wanted to mute them at the right times. My mother in law does the mute thing and either forgets to unmute it until halfway through the scene or gives the silent ads her undivided attention.

I watch regular tv so little, it mostly doesn't happen. We used to DVR a show, but it's been off the air for a while now (or my settings broke when I moved), and fast-forwarded through them. Now, it's generally only very rarely watching the news and I suppose I let them play.

My wife mutes them, I just ignore them.

I avoid ads religiously but when I can't avoid them I mute and look away

You’re not a freak, they’re something that you don’t wanna pay attention to but they’re literally made to grab your attention, so it drives you crazy. Nothing wrong with muting them

Commercial breaks wouldn’t drive me so crazy if every third ad wasn’t for a medication with legitimately gruesome side effects

I don't know what normal people do but people like me don't see ads because they use the appropriate protections from the invasiveness of the internet.

Pihole. Firefox. ublock origin, privacy badger, decentraleyes...

It also helps if you don't participate in systems that attempt to intrusively shove ads down your throat, but you do you.

I use YouTube premium and Twitch turbo to have no ads at all.

"Normal people" sit all the way through ads and are having receptacles installed in their carotid arteries for Amazon to pipe petrochemical runoff directly into their blood-brain barriers.

Me? I don't own a working television, I haven't turned on a radio in years, and all of my digital devices run a FOSS operating system I installed on them with layers of ad blockers.

I have a TV but don't have cable, completely replaced normal TV with yt, Netflix, and anime. I use brave browser so I don't get ads

You will never see ads skipped through where I am. What's the issue with them?

I mute them unless I’m interested.

Most ads are obnoxious and feel like I’m getting a headache listening to the same repetitive, obnoxious voices/music.

Mute the entire TV and use the closed captions when watching the programs. I do this.