I haven't had time to follow up but I will. The one thing in your answer I'd argue with is this:
"Every cat and dog is jumping on these 'studies' and it is upto you what you believe..."
I don't agree with that at all. If you have a 'study' on the one hand that is uncontrolled and based on anecdotal evidence, and on the other a rigourously controlled and well set up study of 17,000 apps that shows nothing then it's not just a question of which you believe.
If you go down that route you risk getting into all kinds of 'woo'. Science isn't a matter of opinion.
I don't doubt it at all, some of the 'studies' I have seen dotted around, shown as proof, have given me cause for concern that a portion of this could be confirmation bias.
I'll be holding out for proof either way. I haven't noticed any adverts based on discussion I have had for a while now, I've dialled back my usage and have a new handset with a custom rom and have also got myself a big massive leather case for my phone.
This doesn't interest me nearly as much as it did when I was experiencing it. I'm still not convinced though and have come to accept that there will always be cause for debate amongst the opposing viewpoints.
If this was happening at a certain point, I could never scientifically prove it, especially since the CA stuff. But I won't go about in circles, everyone knows about the CA stuff and the questions have since been raised in the inquiry into CA - that for me proves that this all weren't 'in my head'. But again, everyone knows this already and it is trudging over old ground.
Regardless, I'll always be interested in reading anything back and forth, for or against.
On a side note, I remember having a discussion on here somewhere about the CA stuff with people saying it was the end of Facebook. Whilst it is no revelation, I knew they'd come out of it unscathed and largely untouched, aside of the 6% drop reported, and Zuckerberg grovelling to Congress nothing much else happened.
They did as expected - threw money at it with campaigns, adverts and new features.
If this was happening, chances are, it won't be happening any more (via Facebook and/or it's sister apps).