is consumerism out of control? -EMMA

Is consumerism out of control?

Consumerism is getting out of control especially around the Christmas season when Christmas, “sale” and “50% off ”signs start to appear. The regular shoppers are constantly getting drawn into the sales section in the festive time of year. Which really puts the question into mind if Christmas has become more of a time to spend money on gifts, and cause more consumerism then to celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ.

The event of Black Friday was created in America the Friday following thanks giving. It was made to help give a boost on sales for Christmas shoppers. 

The Black Friday craze hits everyone differently some stay home and look at the online deals however others camp outside their favorite shops for a chance to grab some of there desired items in the sales it has been discovered that only “a third of shoppers really are out for the deals” the others “are at least partly driven by desire to be with their fellow humans”.

Visa predicted “that UK shoppers will spend £518m online on cards on Friday - which would make it the country's biggest internet shopping day in history” this shows that consumerism is increasing in time and that visa has seen how high people spend during seasons of sales.

With the help of the Internet people can buy basically anything online from the touch of a button. Web sites like Amazon, EBay promotes consumerism because it givess customers the opertunity to buy anything online at any given time or place this is making people lazy and leads to higher online sales.

Black Friday causes causes a lot of danger to everyone as they get overwhelmed with sales for example the BBC News has stated that "three men were arrested and a woman was hit by a falling television. "This shows that people are starting to get out of control and that shop assistance can’t control what is happening in their shops. This also shows that during time of sales health and safety policies don’t seem to matter.

Also BBC news said that "a man was arrested in Salford after he threatened to "smash a staff member's face in" this shows that consumerism is getting to the point that it can be dangerous and that people are willing to do anything for a desired product.

It has been said by psychologists that consumerism causes discontent in the long term and is linked "to lower life satisfaction" and moved on to say that "more wealth may provide only a partial fix" this shows that consumerism is not a permanent fix and that is will eventually lead to unhappiness.  

 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-30241459

This picture on the left shows a cashier struggling to keep customers in control and being shouted at by customers for attention. This shows that there aren’t enough workers in a store at times of sale. 

Sales happen in every season, which adds to why consumerism is getting out of control. When summer ends and winter start. The price of summer clothes dramatically drops with the change of season shops lower prices of products to encourage people to spend on items that they don’t need. 

 

Consumerism makes people feel like they need the latest fashion trends to fit and also the latest technology. By making shoppers feel like they need items it makes them spend more, also by lowering prices it makes it easy for them to spend. For instance, the IPhone 6 sales, hundreds of people stood outside different apple store around London, Tokyo and Sydney waiting for the realise of the iPhone 6."Some people set up camp around Apple's major stores weeks ago"

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2760926/One-day-Queues-Apple-shops-longer-fans-line-latest-iPhone-6-handsets.html

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/our-destructive-consumer/ 

 

Consumerism can be seen as a bad thing but it can benefit people in low economic countries for instance, it gives people work to earn a living if consumerism wasn’t around it could “brings on economic recession or even depression, along with massive unemployment.” So this shows that consumerism might be out of contrrol but it is needed to give people employment.

Consumerism effects environment we live in for instance the production process requires extraction of natural resources like foil fuel, water and wood. Also to make the products we require the creation of factories and this creates pollution and waste. Consumerism is leading to destruction to the environment. “Consumption seems to get the least attention” because “it may be the most difficult to change” this shows that environmentalists know about the problem consumerism causing the environment, but they know they can’t do anything to change it.

http://www.globalissues.org/article/238/effects-of-consumerism