Consumerism: how it traps you and how to avoid it

It is assumed that we are free to choose. But are we really? Black Friday, Cyber ​​Monday, Christmas, sales, Valentine’s Day… Our consumer society makes the act of consuming a central dynamic. Whims become “real needs”creating new niches of motivations to satisfy these new “needs”.

We don’t just live to satisfy those fictitious needs. Success and well-being are linked to purchasing power and our purchasing power, or to a constant renewal to be up to datein which brand new becomes an end in itself.

How they encourage us to consume

In 1998, the American Elias St. Elmo Lewis defined the AIDA model (acronym for: Attention, Interest, Desire and Action) to describe the effects produced by an advertising message. These are the four steps that characterize the typical consumer reaction until they make their decisions, something that has been studied and applied since the 1920s, to encourage us to consume.

We have now reached a point where the purchase is decoupled from the function of the object: the acquisition becomes the result of an emotion. According to Lipovetsky, products are not sold, but rather a vision, a concept, a lifestyle associated with brands. And let’s think that the money destined to seduce us like this, and cause us these sensations, is enormous: the annual global marketing budget is 400,000 million euros, greater than the one that the UN (or many countries) allocate to education, health or justice.

According to the Neuromedia agency, we receive about 6,000 advertising hits a day through social networks, mobile phones, online advertising, in the press, radio, television, bloggers, influencers, etc. Some hyper-consumerism stimuli that we are often not aware of, because consuming has also become a mental form with which we judge our lives and that of others. Thus we participate in a kind of superficial competition to be “cooler”.

6 keys to avoid consumerism

But We can run away from all this incitement to consumerism and these consumer-dependent lifestyles. We can use our consumption as a tool for socio-environmental transformation, being aware of our power as consumers, and also of the productive models (or of the companies) that we benefit with our money and our consumption. Here are some keys:

1. Become aware of the triggers of consumption

Usually we end up buying something uncritically, emotionally or compulsively. We do not buy out of necessity, but for many other reasons that should be aware of. These are just some examples:

Because it is cheap.For leisure.For lack of time.To make up for dissatisfactions.Because we believe that it gives us a certain status.For the desire to belong to a group, real or imaginary.Because we think that they reinforce or better communicate our virtues.

All these “consumption triggers” are ideas that give us reasons to consume, but ideas after all and unfortunate, and often we are not even aware of them. So the next time we find ourselves consuming one of them, let’s think about it. Thus we can bring awareness to the act of consuming.

2. Consume what is necessary

It is not about giving up material goods that can help us to satisfy our real needs, but rather superficial ones, thus redefining what we really need, and what goods or services are essential for our day to day.

Furthermore, it should be taken into account that many times the “use” of things helps us, not their “possession”. It can be shared, rented, loaned, etc., before buying. A saving for us and in terrestrial resources.

The current productive model generates a spiral that makes us continually assuming new fictitious needs and, in many cases, these needs have little to do with the real ones. And how does it do it? Well, in part, by offering us ephemeral sensations during the purchase that make us keep looking for that satisfaction that never comes.

That is the engine of this consumerist spiral: the frustration and dissatisfaction of wanting more and more. This can even lead to a certain degree of addiction, the more intense the greater our deficiencies are, and often generating dependencies on a certain income, working more, accumulating assets, having more space… to lifestyles that make us more vulnerable.

3. Flee from immediacy

The speed of consumption that new technologies allow goes against the interests of our domestic economy, and the biophysical limits of the planet, since it causes greater consumption that depletes our monetary and terrestrial resources. let’s give each other a breather before the quick purchaseand let’s not give in to the dictatorship of the click.

We can practice the slow shopping, calmly buy what we need. or the DIY (Do it yourself) or “Do it yourself”, which offers the satisfaction of creating or repairing, never comparable to the passive act of purchasing.

And satisfaction is even greater if the process is collective, such as:

Be part of a consumer group. Make collective or direct purchases from the producer. Local and local consumption. Participate in a collective garden, in a renewable cooperative, in a cooperative supermarket or in a social market. Organize clothing exchanges or of toys. Learn to repair bicycles, electronic devices…

These and many others can be much more enriching experiences related to consumption and not based on possession as satisfaction of our needs.

4. Decommodify life and consumption

Hyperactive leisure neglects many options, because it seems that the value lies in the number of things we have, rather than in their quality, in enjoying them, in the fact that they are useful and long-lasting.

However, conscious (or sustainable) consumption is linked to “good living”, it has to do precisely with dismantling all those false commercial satisfactions that are presented to us as instant solutions, to provide us with living conditions that do not depend on material well-being. , or unfair treatment with the planet, or with other beings.

5. Expand horizons

We are encouraged to think that we can only satisfy our needs through “owning”, relegating “being”, “doing” and “relating”. However, we are not isolated entities that can develop regardless of the environment. Most of the studies on happiness and social well-being, including the two oldest – the Grant study and the Terman study – indicate that the quality of social relationships It is one of the key elements in people’s happiness.

Sustainable consumption is linked to coexistence, to the enjoyment of diversity, of nature and respect for human beings, and non-humans. It often allows us to weave, in community, simpler lifestyles, less attached to monetary exchangecloser to the environment and with less impact.

For this, it is convenient be well informed about what is behind consumer goods and servicesas well as sustainable alternatives, in order to be able to decide as freely as possible.

6. Know yourself and know the planet

Let’s explore our “being” and our relationship with the planet, beyond the innumerable possibilities of consumption that are offered to us. Cause the more we know what we need and what suits us (physically, emotionally, psychologically, economically, etc.), the more comfortable we are with ourselves, the less we depend on external evaluation, on material goods, on consuming, and the less we succumb to any claim from the various industries.

In addition, the more we know how nature works, the more aware we are of the relationship of interdependence that we maintain with her, and the other beings, and more we opt for alternatives that are positive for all of us. Between them, consume less and minimize goods or services that cause harm people, the planet or other living beings.