The Dangers Of Consumerism In American Society

Consumerism, or the idea of increasingly buying more consumer goods, seems to have taken over today’s society. For example, advertisements that persuade one to buy a product can be seen almost everywhere from large and suspecting places, like televisions, to surprising and inconspicuous places, like on the side of eggshells. Any modern-day consumer should be able to quickly locate a nearby advertisement even in their own home! Society, through advertising, does nothing but support and fuel Americans’ increasingly detrimental habit of constantly buying more products. Consumerism has become such a large part of the American society due to a tremendous amount of tricky advertizing, unhealthy spendings, delusions of grandeur, and reduced savings, and this is slowly causing society to put itself in danger.
For instance, today’s advertisements have become considerably more dishonest and serve only to sell to the largest audience possible in order …show more content…
As said by The New York Times’ Ann Carrns in her article “The Dangerous State of Americans’ Savings,” “More than half of American households have less than one month of income available in readily accessible savings to use in case of an emergency.” This is a safety concern that should worry everyone because it shows that most of society is not prepared to face an emergency such as another Great Depression or even a small problem like a temporary job loss. Growing consumerism is undoubtably putting Americans in danger. Also, in terms of saving money, Daniel Boylan, an instructor of finance at Ball State University in Muncie, says, “The hardest part is the psychological side.” This is true because the societal norm these days is to keep spending money. There is little evidence to be found of acts that reinforce the idea of saving money. Instead, there is only an abundance of advertisements that want one to increasingly spend