What is the next step for consumers after they buy more stuff than they’ll ever need or use? They start to share stuff and swap stuff, if not throwing stuff away. Since the boom of information technology such as smart phones and computers, a new business model has emerged and enabled by social communications. From the mid-2000s, there is a growth of the so-called collaborative consumerism, a notion that consumers somehow can share or swap anything from clothes to cars to parking spaces. This business trend has rampant with an increasing over-consumption and over-indulging by consumers. The recent changes in our economic landscape have only exposed and intensified a phenomenon, an explosion insharing, bartering, lending, trading, renting, gifting, and swapping. This new business strategy may sound like a winner to some people considering the global population growth, increasing use efficiency, and reducing waste. However, there are still economists in doubt whether this is a step-up from the corporate consumerism. The recent changes in our economic landscape have only exposed and intensified a phenomenon: an explosion insharing, bartering, lending, trading, renting, gifting, and swapping. The term of collaborative consumption was pioneered by Marcus Felson and Joe L. Spaeth in their paper “Community Structure and Collaborative Consumption: A routine activity approach”. The paper dealt with car sharing which was published in 1978 in the American Behavioral Scientist magazine. This concept was popularized by Rachel Botsman and Roo Rogers in their book “What’s Mine is Yours: The Rise of Collaborative Consumption” published in 2010. Botsman described collaborative consumption as “a new socio-economic big idea pr... ... middle of paper ... ... we consume and what we’re consuming. People will still shop and companies will still sell. This consuming strategy has been around for years. The arrival of social media and networking, along with technological advantages, push the concept forward. Collaborative consumerism allows better utilization of assets, product design for longevity, and mindset and behavior change. There are a smarter way to consume by moving away for the concept of outright ownership toward one where we share, barter, rent, and swap assets not just on the tangibles, but also our non-tangibles. As we move away from a culture that defines our identity and happiness based on ownership of stuff toward a society based on shared resources and a collaborative mindset, design, brand and consumer mindset will change, for the better. “One day NOT owning things will be cooler than owning them.”
The chosen article is Two Cheers for Consumerism by James Twitchell. In this article he talks about consumerism, commercialism, and materialism. He argues the stand point of consumers and the role they live by every day. In other hands the critics, Academy, gives the consumers and overview description to their consumers.
As of today, many Americans will continue to bypass the greediness many industries like Disney promote. In fact, with the national debt, many shoppers will continue to simply lounge around in the shopping centers purchasing their wants. After all, individuals cannot resist the stores latest hottest trends and spatial designs. In other words, our society will continue to be hungry for material satisfaction. Consumerism has replaced society’s sense of desires for life’s necessities with insatiable search for commodities, because consumerism is based on purchasing new goods without the attention to its needs, advertisements will continue to expand resulting in materialism as a major life philosophy.
Through out the world, thousand of starving people look wherever they can for scraps of food or spare change. On the other hand, millionaires and billionaires can buy a private jet to fly anywhere on a whim while eating the finest of foods. In the middle, ordinary people work regular twelve-hour days in order to pay the bills and put food on the table. Each person can be in a different category. Most often you can tell which category an individual is in by looking at the things they own. Consumerism, or the push to buy goods and services, is not a new thing. It has been around since the very first sale or trade centuries ago. Although today, controversy has arisen about the rapidly growing rate of consumerism and how it affects the economy around the world. Is the current rate of consumerism a good or bad effect on the economy? Also, what are some ways to help people understand consumerism better? As I do research and explore, I hope to find the answers to these questions in order to understand the issue better myself.
‘Brave New World’ by Aldous Huxley is a science-fiction book in which people live in a futuristic society and a place called the World State. In ‘Brave New World’, Aldous Huxley used the idea of consumerism to describe the behaviors and lives of the citizens of the World State. The practice of consumerism by the people of the World State fulfilled their satisfactory and happiness. However, it also blinded purity and truth among its people. Different classes and different genders of people practiced different acts of consumerism such as consuming soma, technology and bodies. They sought happiness from them and eventually these acts became a social norm. However, these practices of consumerism also had side effects. It blinded truth such as
In M.T. Anderson’s dystopian novel Feed we encounter a society comprised of rampant and mindless consumerism. The thoughts and personalities of the individuals have little meaning in this world filled with technology and ubiquitous conformity. The characters in Feed all fall into the category of ideal consumers, following the cycle society is stuck in. School and learning have become a thing of the past, and due to the feed implants any information is now at their fingertips. Schools are now owned by private firms, the sole purpose of education is to create better consumers. Titus, the protagonist in the novel is the embodiment of a mindless citizen, who resides in the conformable bed of his conformity. The society created by the feed hinders
I don’t propose here to rehash the arguments about why consumerism is evil, but I would like to propose some solutions to the conundrum of modern living: how to find satisfaction through consuming differently and thoughtfully.
Hetherington, K. (2009) ‘Consumer Society? Shopping, consumption and social science’, in Taylor, S., Hinchliffe, S., Clarke, J. and Bromley, S. (eds)
For some reason, the more we consume, the happier we feel. But is this really true? Most people believe that they would be happier if they were wealthier. This is how consumption, consumerism and over consumption come in. Annie Leonard, the writer of The Story Of Stuff, gives her definition of these words. Leonard tells us that while consumption means having and using goods and services to meet one’s needs, consumerism is a certain relationship to consumption in which we meet our emotional and social needs through shopping, and we define and show ourselves through the stuff we own. Meaning we state ourse...
At present our society is based around materialistic beliefs. To some level, we all take part in the consumer culture by valuing material possessions. Most of us are constantly striving for more and there is no denying we want the best of the best; whether it is the newest iPhone or high-tech car. We have closets full of clothes that we don’t need. Large houses (our own Gatsby mansions) And lots of, well... things! And even when our demands are met, still there is the all-consuming desire for more things! Despite mounting credit card debt we still manage to find a need for more things! The result of this rampant consumption is in fact a miserable and unfulfilled life. According to researchers, materialistic people struggle to be grateful for what they have, may it be their family, a nice house or a descent job. They are never fully s...
Many theorists suggest that consumption is correlated to the identity of an individual, that by purchasing goods from the mass market, it enables us to visibly establish our position within society. This differs from previous times in which a range of factors such as family histories, character and personal achievements played a significant role (Gabriel and Lang, 2006). Instead, there is the idea that the consumer has the ability to gain pleasure over objects, not just solely by the manipulation of objects, but through the degree of control over their meaning. The degree of control is developed and achieved through imagination and provides greater possibilities of pleasure experiences. This suggests that modern consumption can be seen as device that enables individuals to ‘dream’ about the desires they wish to fulfill. (Campbell, 1989: 79) (Cited in Gabirel & Lang, 2006)
Consumerism is an everyday necessity within the late-modern life that continuously alters individuals and communities across the globe. As the capitalist system steadily grows with drastic technological advances and globalisation, consumerism and consumer culture is able to radically advance and alter. Consumer culture is an integral part of society and allows for individuals to express their inner-self and created a personalised image towards society. This allows for members of society to connect with other individuals that have similar interests through materialistic understanding. Importantly, with a more multicultural stance and increased globalisation consumer culture allows for ethnic cultures to reconstruct and display their cultural
Featherstone(1991) states: “Consumption cannot be regarded as merely hedonistic, expressive and impulsive, however much this features in the advertising and lifestyle imagery”. “It clearly involves consumers in calculation, comparisons and research: in short, consumer culture involves knowledge” (Featherstone, 1991). People tend to pay attention to the ethical background of the production of goods they purchase, such as low payments, poor work conditions or exploiting underdeveloped countries. Featherstone(1991) also underlines that “consumption can no longer be seen as an innocent act, but as part of the chains of interdependencies and networks which bind ...
The Internet is rapidly becoming widespread and widely used as a tool for globalization across the world. As the Internet became more easily accessible by most people in the world, the web is bringing significant implications and changes to the way we live, including the way we shop. There is a rapid growth with e-commerce and moving businesses onto the web and retail success is no longer about stores and shopping centers. In developed countries, about two thirds of the population have access to the Internet making the option of online shopping is easily accessible to most people (Valerio). With the ease of shopping in your own home there are many benefits of doing your shopping online. Consumers can easily compare prices online, there is a larger range of products on the web, you can save time by having your shopping delivered right to your doorstep and it also overcomes physical barriers. Over the last decade online shopping has challenged and replaced the traditional means of physically going into shops as the digital world has provided customers with further convenience, flexibility and comfort from shopping from your own home.
“People recognise themselves in their commodities; they find their soul in their automobiles, hi-fi sets, split level homes………social control is anchored in the new needs which the consumer society has produced." (Marcuse,1968:24)To what extent are we controlled by the consumer society we live in?
This paper discusses the relationship between technology and society. It focuses on how technology has influenced various aspects of the society. The areas looked are: how technology has affected the communication, transportation, education, health, economic activities, environment, food production, food conservation and preservation and food distribution. It has gone further to explain how technology has radically changed the demographic structure of the societies in question, specifically Japan society. In addition, it has discussed how technology has influenced government policy formulation.