Consumerism At its Best

The article The More Factor, by Laurence, Shames explains the idea that we live in a society where people tend to have the common addiction to buy and buy more goods. Sadly this tradition has spread to our younger generations. Being a youngster myself, I have witnessed teenagers wanting to buy items just because they have the money to. Many of my friends have a hard time distinguishing what items are necessities and what items aren’t. For example, when the new Iphone 6 came out, many of my friends thought that just because it was the lastest model they had to have it.

The idea of wanting more and more has caused many people to lose value for what they have. When wanting more and more you yearn items for the simple idea of wanting them which means that people buy things without having a reason to. Having this mentality of constantly changing their items like a phone or a car, creates a society that is very materialistic.

But why is this mentality so important in our society? I live in a neighborhood filled mainly with Latinos. I have made an observation that many of the people that live around me like to “show off” all the things they have by buying what they can at the most expensive prices. Ben Franklin said it at best, “America offered new chances to those ‘who, in their own countries, where all the lands [were] fully occupied...could never [emerge] from the poor condition wherein they were born’” (Shames 10).  This means that people from countries that are poor come to the United States to get away from living in those poor conditions. When they arrive here they want to buy a lot of things because what they weren’t able to afford back in their own countries, they are here. As time progresses, they continue to buy more and more items to display to the world the progress they have made in their lives. The idea of the “more factor” has lead society to an addiction that passes from generation to generation. This addiction can originate from wanting to display success but can later lead an impulsive mentality to want to buy things.

 

 

Works Cited

Maasik, Sonia, and Jack Solomon. Signs of Life in the U.S.A.: Readings on Popular Culture for Writers. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2015. Print. Shames, Laurence. “The More Factor”.