Advertising as part of a marketing communication mix is considered to be ambivalent: on the one hand it is generally perceived as an indisputable part of the today’s life, and on the other hand it is considered to be an evil that manipulates and encourages us to the consumption style of life. The aim of this paper is to assess the perception of the social role of advertising from the point of view of full-time students (aged 19-28) – respondents expressed their level of agreement with formulated statements. The results are related to the respondents' gender, the average amount of hours per week spent actively on the Internet and the most frequent place of residence during the academic/school year. The findings show that none of these variables affect the assessment of formulated statements.