I guess it illustrates one of the reasons that I avoided Facebook for so many years.
Even with up-to-the-minute updates of folk's rather mundane lives, many find that they still have such little true content, that they need to share other folk's crap, much of it, as you point out, merely thinly veiled advertisements.
This kinda' reminds of the kind of stuff that the commies, back in the '50's, pointed out illustrated our capitalistic downward spiral.
I can only guess that when we all are wearing our Google Glass(es), and online and viewing all of our waking hours, the push to put virtual billboards in front of our faces will be even greater.