ipl-logo

Excessive Consumerism In America

427 Words2 Pages

In 1950, only one percent of Americans had microwaves, today over ninety-seven percent own microwaves. This is an amazing statistic for modern times, but these statistics also have some drawbacks. People are now buying so much that it is leading to certain problems with our generation. Excessive consumerism is negatively impacting a lot of people 's lives. First off,excessive consumerism is negatively impacting family. Americans, when they get stressed they shop to counteract that stress, people buy items to help them. This is commonly known as “shopping overload”. Americans possess over one billion credit cards and over one million people go bankrupt every year, some of those one billion is thanks to poor management of their money because their money is on a card instead of in the form of paper. In fact, over one-fifth of Americans live in dying poverty. Americans …show more content…

One of the things to blame is something called “shopping fever”, shopping fever is when someone shops too much instead of spending time doing other important things. America 's own schools are getting a treatment of ads in certain places around the school. One of those places is channel one news, a channel a lot of schools are required to watch. Companies will overpay just to get one ad on the news, almost 200,000 dollars for one ad on the news. Companies are also sending in products for schools to model projects around. An example would be gushers sending their products to elementary schools to teach kids how to count, but they are really just trying to get kids to remember their brand name. There has also been a decline in community involvement over the years. Since people are spending too much time shopping and playing with all the new stuff they bought, they don’t have enough time to spend with the community. This is bad because it means a decline in community service like picking up garbage, can drives, and making community

Show More
Related
367 Words | 2 Pages

Many Americans love shopping, especially during the holidays, with its captivating discounts and sales, which lead to uncontrollable splurges on irrelevant things. According to Quindlen, this is an example of America’s crazed consumerism and it is absolutely absurd. In her article, “Honestly, You Shouldn’t Have”, she states that there is currently an assumption that purchasing American merchandises symbolize an act of patriotism and at the same time, build a strong economy. She also states that we, as Americans, need to acknowledge important spiritual values such as friends and family rather than material goods.

Read More
294 Words | 2 Pages

Moreover, the basis of the argument was that Americans are addicted to shopping, due

Read More
776 Words | 4 Pages

Nevertheless, the interviewees frown upon being labelled as someone that values luxury over reasonable spending. Hence, they expressed their emphasis on the importance of needs over wants, and that practicality should triumph over extravagance. They see “limited” consumption as a form of self discipline, where excessive spending was only justifiable when it is spent on the family and invested in the children. If

Read More
661 Words | 3 Pages

In the essay, “College Consumerism Run Amok” describes the views of Kevin Carey on how he views secondary education. Kevin Carey explains how the price of a college tuition have risen across the United States. His first point describes that students are asking for to many “creature comforts” and college oblige them causing tuition to skyrocket. Lastly, he points on that colleges are marketing themselves this way on purpose. Now colleges are marketing “creature comforts” instead of focusing on education.

Read More
128 Words | 1 Pages

1 - Consumerism developed in America during the early twentieth century in large part due to the boom in industry created by Europe 's inability to create goods after World War I. Combined this with American inventions such as Henry Ford’s assembly line and Americans had money to spend (Schultz, 2013). With the advent of an electrical distribution system, Americans had electricity in their homes for the first time, which led to the desire for all types of electrical appliances to make life easier. All these new products meant that companies had to get the word out about their products which ignited the advertising industry, which led to even more consumerism. Mix into this recipe, the growing credit industry, and you had consumerism like

Read More
851 Words | 4 Pages

As World War II came to an end, the United States entered the 50s. This decade became a major influential time that brought many cultural and societal changes. Categories such as the economy, where a boom in new products increased, the technology world which incorporated new medicines and computers, entertainment when the television became popular and the overall lifestyles that Americans adapted to. All of these topics reshaped and created several advancements throughout society during the 1950s.

Read More
511 Words | 3 Pages

In Anna Quindlen’s essay, Stuff is Not Salvation, she argues that one cannot determine how “better off” they are, by the amount of belongings they possess. Quindlen states that Americans have, “an addiction to consumption, so out of control that it qualifies as a sickness.” However, she is not just referring to an addiction to buying meaningless items, but the idea that people are purchasing items when they have no money. Quindlen validates her argument with the tragedy of a walmart employee that as trampled to death on Black Friday, and the concept that many people have lost their sense of appreciation and gratefulness. She also argues that there are indeed things we need, however, a large majority of people’s perception of want and need are obscured.

Read More
1241 Words | 5 Pages

Throughout history, consumerism has been defined and changed by aspects such as war, changes in work and production, and government policies. Americans have been able to consume more luxuries over time and have had more control over the way the economy progress and even when to call it to a halt. Consumerism has benefitted American citizens by putting money back into their pockets through policies and procedures such as the New Deal and the increase in union power. Workers’ wages have increased due to consumer and their unions have become more powerful over time. Consumerism is not a thing of the past, but rather a favorable advantage of the future that has allowed America to progress and benefitted American

Read More
760 Words | 4 Pages

Consumption In Aldous Huxley’s “Brave New World”, the concepts of consumerism and utopia are continuously compared and discussed in tandem with one another to decide if any correlation between them is present. Although people may argue that the humans belonging to the World State are happy, their lack of simple human pleasures such as love, religion, intellect, free will, etc, denies the people of actual joy. Since the government is what controls these pleasures by glorifying consumption, the World State’s culture and consumerism must interrelate. The government's control of common human experiences and characteristics such as love, pain, religion, and free will result in the total dependence on the state.

Read More
806 Words | 4 Pages

A consumerism makes the community and economy stable which is the goal of the society. In Brave New World, the motto of the government is “community, identity, and stability” (6). Claim: A consumer economy makes the society of Brave New World which is when the most important in the economy is buying and selling of goods and services overall. Establish Evidence: In the Western civilization, Huxley would realize that consumers still make up most of the economy.

Read More
716 Words | 3 Pages

Commentary Essay on Shopping and Other Spiritual Adventures in America Today The American people are focusing more on materialistic items, people are shopping for pleasure more than necessity. This article comments on how people are shopping to release stress or to gain pleasure. Even though the article was written in 1984, it is still pertinent to modern time. In Shopping and Other Spiritual Adventures in America Today by Phyllis Rose, varied sentence length, different point of views, and anaphora are utilized to prove that society is becoming consumed in materialism.

Read More
993 Words | 4 Pages

I’m astounded by how different the views on consumerism are for people living in a developing country compared to a first world country like Canada. I only noticed how unacceptable my addiction to consumerism is when it was time to pack my luggage for the flight home and I wasn’t able to fit everything and thus I’m forced to leave nearly 70$ worth of goods behind. It was the first time where I legitimately felt unintelligent with what I was spending my money on and my relatives to this day create no shortage of teasing about it.

Read More
1464 Words | 6 Pages

Consumerism and Consumption in Eighteenth Century Britain Consumo ergo sum - I consume, therefore I am. This turn on the classic phrase I think, therefore I am has become increasingly popular, especially used for reflection on our society and by critics of capitalism. In order to understand our society better, it is important to descry the origins of the capitalistic ecosphere we live in. Traces of consumerism can be found throughout all ages of humanity, however a particularly great shift took place in the eighteenth century. This essay intends to prove that the new culture of consumerism influenced the British society in all aspects during this period.

Read More
1147 Words | 5 Pages

The American society is a materialistic system, causing self-destruction, depression, and health problems. Materialism means placing a higher value on objects. This has usually considered objects, which has more value than experiences, personal relationships and beliefs. In American society, people have been trained to think that; they are “required” to have more material things in order to be happy. According to Tim Kasser, “The more materialistic

Read More
791 Words | 4 Pages

Consumerism intrudes with the workings of society by overthrowing the standard judgment wish for an adequate supply of life 's necessities, a steady family and solid associations with a manufactured continuous journey for things and the purchasing power with little respect for the genuine utility of the item purchased. In today’s World World, there is a high level of consumption which has been described as a major threat on sustainability. Even though consumerism has positive effects like motivating people to work harder in order to improve their social status and well being, it has adverse effects on the environment and the social aspect of life. Consumerism, according to the new Oxford English dictionary, means the preocccupation of society with the acquisition of consumer goods. Sustainablity, on the other hand, according to the ‘brudtland report’ was broadly defined as Development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.

Read More

More about Excessive Consumerism In America

Related Topics

Open Document