Have you ever questioned what you buy? Do you need it? The fast-paced modern world makes things outdated quickly, forcing people to buy new stuff without reasoning. Today people are more likely to consume unconsciously due to mass production and marketing features. Mass media, the marketing industry, and social media influencers make people believe that they need to buy more things than they need. Consumerism is a social and economic system that encourages people to purchase goods and services in more significant amounts. Increased consumerism is detrimental to the environment by the overproduction of disposable products. Moreover, consumerism negatively affects people’s well-being affecting their mental health. However, despite the moral and financial advisability of reducing consumerism, people cannot easily give up excessive consumption of goods. This essay argues that reducing consumerist behavior makes people happier due to a stress-free lifestyle, enhanced self-awareness, and an eco-friendly environment.
What people purchase mostly is not essential for their survival. People go shopping for the sake of having the newest and most incredible things through following a consumer impulse or a momentary desire based on marketing manipulations. They work hard to earn more money, forgetting about their mental health. By reducing consumerism, people can decrease the daily amount of stress they receive. For example, a person can reduce the stress of choosing by having fewer choices while buying goods and services. Being in the decision-making process is stressful for some people as it requires thinking about various outcomes. Therefore, when a person consumes less, he or she has minor concerns about what to choose which further leads to a stress-free lifestyle.
Moreover, higher consumption leads to competition among people about having particular products. Competitive consumption emerges from people’s desire to be a part of the specific social group with which individuals identify themselves (Gabriel and Tim 67). For example, launching a new version of the smartphone makes people desire to buy it, even though their current phone is functioning well. This is because a new phone is featured everywhere, and everyone is talking about it. Additionally, having a new model suggests a person’s financial status or can afford it. Thus, being accepted into a particular social group. Such competition and willingness to be accepted by a social group may cause stress for people. It is not easy to follow the trends of the technologically advanced world, which is constantly changing.
Furthermore, having more working hours and considering people as your competitors causes daily stress and leads to anxiety and more serious psychological conditions. An individual with such a hard-working and competitive attitude cannot keep doing it for a more extended time because his or her life will not contain meaning and passion. Such a lifestyle will lead to depression that may end up with fatal outcomes. For example, in industrial countries like Japan, there is a term, Karoshi, for death due to overtime work (Kawashima 170). People work themselves to death and undermine their mental and physical health. They forget that their life is not only about working and consuming more but about more significant things like family, relationships, doing something they enjoy, and so on. Consumerism forces people to put material values over what they need and desire. It makes people believe that they need more things to be happy, as a result, stressing them. Therefore, people should consume less to decrease stress in their lives and stabilize their health.
One more reason to reduce consumerist behavior is to be more self-aware about your actions. Today’s generation consumes more goods and services than any other previous generation. Modern people respond to increased capitalism with an uncontrollable desire to buy things provided by the market. People become addicted to consumption, suggesting their unconscious behavior about shopping. They do not become aware of their actions and purchase things and services without any reasoning. For example, instead of buying overpriced coffee every day and contributing to the production of plastic, it is more effective to purchase one glass or metal bottle. By having such a reusable bottle, a person can drink his or her coffee without causing any harm to the environment.
In addition, people can save money for more valuable things if they learn to control their desires to buy unnecessary things. For instance, saving money will be much easier when a person analyzes his needs and uses his or her reason while shopping. Mindfulness was found to be an antidote to consumerism as well as the way to a happier life (Doran). When an individual is aware of his or her actions, thoughts, and feelings, he or she can control them and benefit from them. The life of such a person may transform from meaningless consumption of goods and services into meaningful existence.
People can discover their true selves and improve their ability to manage the surrounding environment. With the decision to reduce consumerist behavior, a person will not only aware of his actions but also will save money for more valuable things. For example, if a person dreams about having their own house, he or she can collect enough money to buy a house by limiting consumer impulses and rash shopping. A person also can learn how to control his or her finances and rationally spend money. As a result of reducing consumerist behavior, people will have happier life full of self-awareness.
The book of Gabriel and Lang demonstrates how unpredictable consumers can be in making trends. Their choices transform as rapidly as new things emerge in the market. Most of them do not reason their purchases and services, living an automatic life. Gabriel and lang argue that consumers are products of the Western culture and that they always look for happiness from outside sources and material goods rather than from inside. Consumers are thought to earn happiness, meaning that people work hard and compete with each other to finally get what is expected to bring happiness. Things, such as a new house, the latest model of car, or an expensive bag should make people happy and fulfill their lives. However, according to Gabriel and Lang, for consumers, such things are always not enough, and they strive for getting more goods and services (65). They do not know the value of goods and do not understand that happiness is not something to buy but rather to experience and feel. Therefore, by reducing consumerist behavior, people will eventually obtain the happiness that they seek so a long.
Another reason to reduce consumption has a healthy environment that contributes to the well-being of people. Overproduction, as the main consequence of consumerism, negatively impacts the environment by producing more disposable products, such as plastic bottles, paper towels, and others. In addition, it provokes more construction of factories, deforestation, killing animals, and testing products on them. For example, about 50 – 100 million animals are used to test drugs and cosmetic products every year (Kabene and Baadel 3). Animal testing becomes a severe issue leading to ethical debates among political elites, mass production supporters, and eco-activists. Moreover, due to globalization, there is a higher consumption of meat worldwide because popular fast-food cafes are opened almost in every urban region, causing more killing of animals.
People are losing their link with nature due to increased consumerist culture in the post-industrial world. They do not see the harm they cause for the environment and its creatures. Human beings are part of nature and when they get apart from it, they feel lost and anxious. Urban life and the fast-paced world make people senseless and rude, thus consuming more goods and services as they can (Gabriel and Lang 87). As such, the environment, and people themselves are not sustained and suffer from consumerism. Having less consumption of goods and services has a positive impact on the environment as well as on people’s life, increasing their sense of belonging to nature. People start to feel more freedom when they discover their natural selves and attachment to the environment.
Consumerism enhances the production of energy and materials, leading to more industrial waste. One of the critical issues of consumerism is associated with cars. People now have more vehicles than before, thus resulting in more pollution, more traffic, and more use of fossil fuels. The carbon dioxide produced from automobiles affects the environment by contributing to global warming, resulting in more severe outcomes like increased sea levels, glacier melting, and extinction of animals and fishes. If such production of carbon dioxide will continue, the world will no longer be able to sustain people and life. This demonstrates the detrimental effects of increased consumerism on the environment. Therefore, reducing consumerism is crucial for people to become healthier and to live in a good environment.
To conclude, today’s world is developing too fast, making people consume more goods and services. They purchase things without any consideration of their needs and abilities. Due to influences from outside sources, such as social network platforms and mass media, people tend to buy unnecessary things unconsciously. This behavior is called consumerism which in its increased form, causes adverse ecological and psychological outcomes. As such, people should consume less to maintain the detrimental effects of increased consumerism. However, it is hard for people to consume fewer products and services due to the established societal norms and changeable modern world trends.
A stress-free lifestyle, enhanced self-awareness, and eco-friendly environment emerge from reducing consumerist behavior, contributing to the happy life of people. Decreasing consumption of goods and services leads to less stress in everyday life due to fewer choices, fewer working hours, and competition. Moreover, reducing consumerism makes people more self-aware about their actions and thoughts. They start to analyze their needs and examine what they buy. With such a selective attitude, people obtain a meaningful and happy life. In addition, reducing consumerism is beneficial to the environment due to a decrease in the production of energy, materials, and products.
References
Doran, Peter. A Political Economy of Attention, Mindfulness and Consumerism: Reclaiming the Mindful Commons. Taylor & Francis, 2017.
Gabriel, Yiannis, and Tim Lang. The Unmanageable Consumer. Sage, 2015.
Kawashima, Yusaku. “Karoshi and Japan’s Work Style Reform.” Kennedy School Review, vol. 18, 2018, pp. 169-173.
Kabene, Stefane, and Said Baadel. “Bioethics: a look at animal testing in medicine and cosmetics in the UK.” Journal of Medical Ethics and History of Medicine, vol. 12, 2019, pp. 1-5.