Excessive Consumerism In The United States

How could Americans have felt richer after World War II in the 1950’s than they do now, even though Americans are making more money? The cause for this feeling is a terrible disease known as affluenza. Affluenza, also known as excessive consumerism, is when people spend more money and buy more things, but end up enjoying everything less. Without excessive consumerism, people would save more money and would also be happier. Therefore, excessive consumerism in the United States is causing a negative impact on the culture’s family, community, and environment.

To begin, excessive consumerism is causing a negative impact on the family. It is very bad for a person’s health. This is because it can cause physical symptoms such as exhaustion, stress,

It has led to “shopping fever”, causing shopping malls to become the center of many communities. People see malls as a destination to fill a bored life. In fact, 10% of all people visit malls each week and people shop an average of 6 hours a week. Before, even though many places had countless numbers of ads, schools were relatively ad-free. But now, even schools have seen an increase in the number of ads. Many schools require students to watch a daily new show called Channel One. Companies pay up to $200,000 to place a single ad on Channel One. Now, even some school buses have ads plastered on the sides of them. One reason schools have many ads now is because ads increase school revenue. Sometimes, teachers even use products from big companies to teach students. But, there are also ads for unhealthy snack foods that students are taught to avoid in health classes. Excessive consumerism has also led to the diminishment of community involvement. The Salvation Army reports an increasing difficulty finding volunteer bell ringers. It’s not just the Salvation Army that has seen a decrease in volunteers. Participation in civic organizations and activities has been declining over the past twenty years. This is in part due to the fact that people are working much more to make money, and have no more time for volunteering. To sum up, excessive consumerism undoubtedly damages the community when the time

Excessive consumerism harms your health, diminishes the quality of learning in schools, and causes many resources to be used up and wasted. Although excessive consumerism is a terrible issue, there are ways to solve this problem. One way is to carefully examine spending habits and determine if the things bought are really worth the extra hours worked. Another way is co-housing. This is where a group of families buy groceries in bulk, garden together, and help take care of each other’s families, but still live in their own houses. A final way is to have economists change the way they measure national growth. Instead of using GDP (gross domestic product), they should use GPI (genuine progress indicator). This is a more accurate way of measuring actual national growth. Overall, excessive consumerism has many adverse effects on all aspects of life, but can still be solved with changes in people’s everyday