There is always a reason to shop online. Black Friday, Halloween, spring, Christmas candle season. No occasion is too small for a spree.
Thanks to influencers and online barrages of ads and promotions, in 2014, over 50 million people had watched over 1.6 billion minutes of buying videos.
Online promotions are no longer confined to the domain of the career influencer — everyone posts them, including children and celebrities.
By 2016, 76% of Americans were online shoppers, compared to just 22% in 2000.
And by 2025, social-media shopping alone is expected to become a $1.2 trillion industry.
We expect what we buy to add value to our lives, even if only in the form of a tiny thrill, but those purchases soon come to represent an embarrassing waste of our money.
Whether it’s impulse control, “filling a void,” boredom, depression too many ads, the effects of influencers, or actual shopping addiction — most of us are buying more than we need and can possibly us¿¿
Overconsumption is an unchecked coping mechanism. If people had safer lives, safer housing, safety everything, this problem would probably not exist. People shop recklessly when they feel it’s all they have.
