Analysis Of Consumerism

Consumerism is defined as the protection or promotion of the interests in relation to the producer.

What comes to my mind when someone mention the word “consumerism” is that- I think of buy and sell, I think of how the different industries produce exciting and appealing things. But when I think more in depth, I feel that consumerism is like planting a seed in the mind of consumers and letting it grow from there onwards. Products are produced and purchased for many different reasons. One of it is to create a change in how one feels whether the product is necessarily needed by altering the mental and emotional state of one. Consumers command and shape the opinions and strategies of companies. To understand consumerism, we need to understand

Furthermore, credit card companies provide incentives like discounts to attract customers to use them. With these 2 temptations that credit cards offer, people are also enticed to purchase more.

Having known some of the factors that lead to consumerism, let us take a look at the impact locally and globally. A survey was done by Singapore’s Department of Statistics in 2012- 2013 and it shows that the average household income was increase the in the last five years. In contrary to what we think that earning more equals to spending more, it is not the case. The statistics showed that Singaporeans spend more on eating out in restaurants and buying quality goods- our food expenditure spent in restaurants, cafes and pubs has increased from 26.8 percent to 34.9 percent in the last five years

As we aspire to buy things, we work hard to buy it, owns it, then we aspire to buy something again then the cycle repeats. Need is a very subjective word. We rely on our emotions to buy because we want to survive, follow the norms, imitate others’ habits, or to flaunt our wealth, status and taste. What we need to think about is, does material possession equals to happiness and being content? Does external consumption really the answer to our internal instability? Sometimes it confuses us and we forgot what is basic, what is needed for just survival.

Geoffrey Miller pointed out a point in his book which I cannot agree more to: Sims 2, a very well-known game by people of all ages that allows personalised characters to be created, made the portrayed human nature very worrying. In the game, the needs of comfort (boost by using luxuries furniture), fun (boost by luxuries televisions and computers), and environment (boost by luxuries paintings and decorations at home) is on par and weigh as much as needs like hunger, sleep and hygiene. It makes me wonder what kind of ideology we are actually portraying to the children playing the games or the next generation