Today, we live in a global village with the world becoming more connected than ever through the internet. As well as being at an advantage due to the internet where distance has become a crisis of the past people from different corners of the world can communicate through phone calls as well as video calls. We have the trump card to connect with people from various descents learn about numerous cultures and perspectives for which all credits go to the internet. Businesses are booming more than ever. While offline shopping is slowly subsiding, online shopping has become the most convenient trend of current times.
The Use of Social Media as a Platform for Marketing
With the convenience of shopping being a click away due to the internet, it has also given rise to mass consumerism. Mass consumerism is the belief that it is good to buy and use a lot of goods. While there are environmental hazards to the practice of mass consumerism like depletion of natural resources and pollution. There are serious negative mental health effects to it as well. It is impossible to live a simple, minimalistic life by being materialistic. Materialism results in hoarding, self-esteem issues, depression, and anxiety. Social media serves as an inspiration for the comparison of beauty and materialistic things. Hoarding may be associated with harsh experiences and pain.
People may deal with not being able to express their feeling by hoarding to bring a sense of satisfaction and instant gratification. Hoarding is a negative coping mechanism. It helps regulate mental health problems like anxiety, depression and fear by giving a temporary sense of control over one’s life. With the internet booming with certain beauty standards and trend-setting. It really affects the self-esteem of those who do not meet these impossible beauty standards. Do not have the means and resources to keep up with trends. Low self-esteem gives rise to anxiety and depression from comparing oneself to others who ‘have it better’. Not being able to keep up with these standards may lead to depression as well.
Hoarding is linked with impulse control, perfectionism, worry and indecisiveness. If you hoard things, you may be concerned about making mistakes, which is known as perfectionism. You may also struggle to make choices, plan in advance, or figure out how to complete tasks. These could be some of the reasons why some of us are more prone to hoarding. Some researchers believe that hoarding stems from childhood experiences of losing things, not owning things, or people who do not care about you. Some traumatic experiences like abuse, bullying and loss can also result in hoarding. It is common for hoarders to have family members who also hoard, such as a parent or sibling.
Hoarding as a means of promoting consumerism
The marketing teams of any business take advantage of this ‘need to hoard’ and portray their items in fancy and attractive packaging to make the customer believe that they need their product even though they can survive without it in reality. Another advantage that marketers have is that they target on the need for ‘instant gratification’.
Instant gratification or immediate gratification is the need to satisfy a craving right away without bringing into consideration its long-term effects or looking at the bigger picture. It releases instant dopamine in our brain which is a happy chemical. The same hormone is released while watching reels. You may be confused as to how this happy chemical can be bad for us, well these short-term gratification-providing activities leave the brain feeling satisfied and blocks our potential to achieve meaningful things in life. The same dopamine is released when we succeed in a big project and if our brain gets used to dopamine release from instant gratification then it hinders our progress from real success.
When you search for something on Instagram you may have noticed that similar things keep popping in your feed in the form of advertisements. These are called user-directed advertisements. The algorithm of social media handles like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Google caught on to your search pattern and bring to you things that you search or talk about. This is another death trap by businesses to make you buy similar products that you do not need. This not only enhances hoarding culture but also blocks you from adventuring into looking at different products thereby blocks your mind from looking at other choices.
Some of the psychological tricks used by businesses to attract customers are Door in the face technique which is used in offline shopping. The shopkeeper begins with a large amount and when that is refused they resort to a smaller one which is the one they desired all along. An example of this technique is bargaining in shops. Techniques used for online shopping include ‘that’s not all technique’ where businesses offer additional benefits to target people before they have decided whether to comply with or reject specific requests like buy one get one offer and attractive advertisements. Playing hard to get is another online tactic where they imply to have limited stock available. User directed advertisements is another marketing strategy that creates a false sense of reality among teenagers and young adults. People measure each other’s self-worth according to the things the other possesses.They measure their own self-worth according to all the trendy things they got off the internet and use online shopping as a negative defence mechanism when they are feeling low.
The rise in young adults’ virtual shopping involvement
Mostly teenagers and young adults have been victims of the virtual shopping world as they spend the most amount of time online. Middle aged and senior citizens as they have grown in a world separate from the virtual one, have a sense of balance between actual reality and virtual reality. However, as teenagers and young adults have grown into the internet age, their lives are the most interconnected to it.
With advancing marketing strategies like user directed advertisements, people end up hoarding too many of one item. It lures the person into purchasing something they don’t really need due to their ongoing offers and attractive packages. Increase in online shopping, the price of items has also increased way beyond a common person’s budget, creating a sense of frustration when one cannot afford to buy everything they desire. The increase in e-commerce and user directed advertisements have therefore hindered the productivity of many and has created a sense of false reality among teenagers and young adults.
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