Sociological Aspects Of Consumerism

Since the onset of consumerism, the major growth of consumption has caused society to improve their daily life. With new innovations such as washing machines, dishwashers, automobiles, and cell phones society is able to eliminate hard work and progress forward. The inventions and innovations created have enhanced the quality of many lives. The everyday labor around the house is reduced, we can talk to anyone from around the world at any time, and look up any kind of information without having to read a book. However many of these time saving and efficient innovations are purchased by people who have no need for these devices and purchased them un- necessarily as luxury items. There have been many essays written about the positive and negative

Consumerism is everywhere and it affects everyone, but not everybody is aware of it. Consumerism is an idea that it is encouraged for people to acquire goods in increasing amounts. The idea is broadly used in America, but in Brave New World consumerism is everything. Every aspect of life in Brave New World deals with consumerism and to the World State it is the most important thing and it is their foundation of their society. Aldous Huxley mainly uses consumerism as a negative and takes it to extreme lengths where there is almost a humor about it. However, consumerism is a mixed bag that can help certain parts of society, but destroy others.

The citizens of the United States of America are known for their strong sense of freedom. Take that freedom away, and there would be a prodigious riot that traverses across the country. However, the same freedom that Americans thrive on, are slowly poisoning the minds of the masses. Consumerism is the name; the plan is to slowly take over the population, and it has. Consumerism is both beneficial and detrimental to society, and freedom would not exist without the need people have to buy new and innovative items.

1.Whats consumerism ? Consumerism is defined by the preoccupation of society with the acquisition of consumer goods . Good morning/afternoon fellow classmates , today I’ll be discussing how the powerful images conveyed in Bruce Dawe’s texts Americanized and Abandonment of Autos, and a cartoon by Clay Butler, raise issues and concerns about consumerism.

Through the Cold War, America was transitioning in various ways such as the way messages were shared, consumerism, and the constant race against the Soviet Union. During the years 1959-1964, Rod Serling, a New York writer and playwright began using one of the newest inventions, the television, as a way to share his opinion about controversial topics. The rise of the television allowed Serling to access to a larger audience whom he could share his opinion in the form of science fictional episodes in the show The Twilight Zone. Although the show seems ominous and a horror related TV show, it allows us to understand the effects and feeling towards topics such as a possible nuclear war, consumerism, space exploration.

Consumerism - A preoccupation with and an inclination toward the buying of consumer goods. Consumerism has affected adolescents’ mental health through branding and deindividualization. Certain companies have made a point of target young adolescents so that they will buy from those companies in the future. Also, consumerism has affected teens stress and anxiety levels as well as having caused adolescents more depression. This is due to peer pressure and the relationship between materialistic possessions owned and levels of happiness.

There is a very big epidemic of consumerism within the United Sates and it is a result of the contribution of many factors within our society. It is evident that this is not necessary when one views other communities throughout the world but America has yet to make the changes it needs to solve this problem. A big problem with retailers and producers of products is their use of sweatshops, which are located in and out of the U.S. Sweatshops are a huge problem because they are known for having very low safety standards for their employees and mistreat their employees consistently. The reason they are used is because they can give the company better profits off of their goods.

The consumerism that developed in America during the early twentieth Century could be described as a big appetite for consumer goods. The production for goods came about when industrial production of Europe had been destroyed by the war, which allowed American goods to become the dominant product available in Europe(Schultz,2014). New ways of production and payment to the American worker also came into play. Most businesses recognized that if they paid their workers a reasonable salary, then they could afford to buy products, including their own. Some companies realized that when they have happy workers, they tend to more productive at work. With these changes, the industry started to change from a railroad and steel industry to being driven

‘Brave New World’ by Aldous Huxley is a science-fiction book in which people live in a future society and a place called the World State. In this book, Aldous Huxley used the definition of consumerism to describe the behaviors of the citizens of the World State. Various behaviors and conducts of the people of the World State were related to the act of consumerism and pursuing happiness from them. Generally, by consuming anything such as soma, people and knowledge, citizens of the World State sought for happiness. However, those practices of consumerism also blinded the truth among the citizens of the World State.

History 's records often overlook ordinary people, but collectively, they make significant and abiding social change. A social and economic order within America propelled, perhaps unconsciously, by the people, is consumerism. Originating in the nineteenth century, consumerism revolutionized the way individuals thought, behaved, and interacted with each other. Coming into full bloom during the Industrial Revolution, consumerism fueled a new desire for material goods, unnecessary for and unrelated to basic survival. The idea for mass production, a cheaper and more profitable means of consumption, arose with the presence of advancing knowledge and technological power. The businessmen in charge of the industry at the time quickly put together that the financial success of mass production, required mass consumption. Consequently, a means for mass communication needed to be devised. And so, advertisement and media, the vehicles and instruments for consumption, were born (Ewen 2).

The dominance of capitalist countries has facilitated the conformity of global civilization and cultural environments resulting in an increase of consumer cultures (Sarmela, 1977; Chaney, 2004). As capitalism experiences a natural and unavoidable expansion, consumers engage with consumer culture creating invisible products such as social status, identity, cultures, and ethical relationships (Sternberg, 2017). There are two sides to consumer culture that are the values held by society; those who conform and those who rebel (Turow & McAllister, 2014). All participants of society align with either submission or resistance to dominant ideas, values, and social structures. However, as a result of continued progressive diversity and fragmentation, the distinction between submissive and resistance are blurred. Nevertheless, those who resist and rebel are still participants of consumer culture. Instead they instead form sub cultures in society with alternative beliefs, values and ideas that challenge the mainstream (Chaney, 2004). In order to better understand the relationship between consumption practice and the resistance of consumer culture, theories of reflexive project of self, prosumers, lifestyle commodification, and incorporation will be analyzed in relation to the vegan movement.

“Since the end of the Second World War the USA has been transformed into a society where the national economy depends to a large extent on private consumption; and where mass acquisition and use of material goods is the dominant lifestyle, the centerpiece of social practices, leisure time, cultural rituals and celebrations. We refer to it as consumer society.”

My essay is going to look at the claim do we have a freedom of choice in Consumer Society , and is it characterised by different concepts or is it by choice we shop and do things in certain ways.

Consumerism is a phenomenon that has been dominant in all societies for an extremely long time. It causes people to excessively purchase goods and consume things excessive to their actual needs. “A consumer is a person or thing that consumes” (Dictionary.com). Consumerism can be defined as a belief that an expanding consumption of goods is an advantage to the county’s economy. Today people are practically brainwashed to buy more than what they need in order to keep the economy afloat. No one thinks twice about why they are buying things or maybe even what they need. Consumerism has a big impact on our country, good or bad.

Consumerism in the economic sense is defined by Merriam-Webster dictionary as the theory that an increasing in consumption is economically desirable. Consumerism is used in sociology as a preoccupation with an inclination toward the buying of consumer goods. The consumerism theory is used in support of Capitalist economies that benefit from citizens buying more goods and companies spending money to make goods in order to bolster the economic standing of a country. After World War II, America influenced many Allied countries including France to take more capitalist approaches in their economic ideals and free trade policy. This led to those western countries experiencing the sociological definition of consumerism. A new world was seen in those countries with an emphasis on materialism and spending more than they were accustomed to. Both