CONSUMER ADDICTION

Essay 1

Vivienne Elanta

The Oxford Dictionary defines addiction as a “condition of taking drugs excessively and being unable to cease doing so without adverse effects.”

Addiction is a vicious cycle, that of craving and withdrawal. The addict craves the experience to momentarily feel better. Once the effects have worn off, withdrawal symptoms set in. They may be those of pain, despair, self-loathing or even feelings of suicide. In order to avoid such pain another fix is needed, giving the illusion of safety, wellbeing and happiness. The effects of addiction on a long term basis have detrimental consequences on the individual, possibly causing poor health physically, mentally, emotionally and psychologically. These effects flow over to the family as well as to the rest of society. In many cases an addict is unable to work, therefore burdening the health and social security systems. In partnership with the addict is the pusher, who supplies the addicts with what they crave, which keeps the cycle firmly in place.

Stanton Peele and Bruce K. Alexander belief that there are four theories of addiction. They are: “genetic theories (inherited mechanisms that cause or predispose people to be addicted), metabolic theories (biological, cellular adaptation to chronic exposure to drugs), conditioning theories (built on the idea of the cumulative reinforcement from drugs or other activities), and adaptation theories (those exploring the social and psychological functions performed by drug effects). “

The conditioning and adaptation theories would be the most suited theories to explain consumer addiction.

To consume, the Oxford Dictionary defines as: “destroy; use up; eat or drink; spend; waste.”

To varying degrees we are all consumers just by virtue of being alive and depending on resources for basic shelter and food. Our western culture has shifted from satisfying such basic needs towards an “addiction to unbridled consumerism”. Allen D. Kanner and Mary E. Gomes poignantly state that “the idea of more, of ever increasing wealth has become the centre of our identity and security and we are caught by it as the addict by his drugs.”(78).

Since the second world war, people have sought happiness in an increasing array of consumer goods, giving a false sense of security. These feelings only last a short time, therefore in a sense it has the same effect as the drug, in that a new fix is needed. A growing number of people admit that the new car or dress makes them feel better, which is sometimes jokingly referred to as “shopping therapy”.

The advertising industry here plays the role of the pusher, selling ever more sophisticated gadgets to amuse and titillate the senses. Millions of young Australians sit in front of television almost four hours everyday being bombarded by advertising. Much advertising is targeted at our vulnerable youth, brainwashing them to buy the latest plastic bauble on the toy market. The consumer pusher has successfully hooked the next generation to being consumer addicts, contributing to ever increasing economic growth. Our politicians hail this growth as economic success, spurring the Australian consumer on under the guise of creating jobs and national economic wellbeing.

This false sense of wellbeing brings with it an unease. In our cultural psyche we know that all is not well. Common sense tells us that increasing levels of consumption also increases the amount of waste and accelerates the rate of depletion of non renewable resources, and yet as members of the consumer society, most Australians behave as if we live on a continent with unlimited infinite resources. Mathis Wackernagel and William Rees for example state “ Current rates of resource harvesting and waste generation deplete nature faster than it can regenerate. Stanford University biologist Peter Vihoutek and his colleagues calculated in 1986 that human activities were by then already ‘appropriating ,’ directly or indirectly, 40 percent of the products of terrestrial photosynthesis.” (pp.1-2)

What this means is that there is only 60 percent of the energy of photosynthesis left over for the total life support functions of the remaining twelve million species. More worrying is the fact that human consumption is currently doubling every twenty eight years. Australia’s ecological footprint per person was estimated in 1996 by Wackernagel and Rees to be 3.74 hectares. If the whole world’s population consumed resources at such a rate we would need over two and a half planets.

“Since the beginning of this century, the ‘available’ per capita ecological space on Earth has decreased from between 5 and 6 hectares to only 1.5 hectares. Meanwhile as levels of consumption have increased, the Ecological Footprints of people in some Industrialised countries have expanded to more than 4 hectares….[illustrating] the fundamental conflict confronting humanity and the real challenge of sustainability today: the Ecological Footprint of average citizens in rich countries exceeds their ‘fair earth share’ by a factor of two or three; thus if everybody on earth enjoyed the same ecological standards as North Americans we would require three Earths to satisfy aggregate material demand”.

(Ibid pp.88-89) Alongside such resource depletion, such levels of consumption are causing a massive loss of habitat and enormous growing rates of species extinction. Biologists estimate in 1900 one species a year became extinct. Today it is estimated that the rate of species extinction is over 62 thousand per year, and is doubling every six years.

Not only is the consumer told that material things will bring happiness, but that consuming is vital for the economy and the growth national product. Australia is one of the largest consumers on this planet

Eric Fromm, author of “To Have Or To Be?”, suggests that our society is in “Having” mode, which focuses on the accumulation of material possessions. He says that , “ Today’s consumers may identify themselves by the formula: I am = what I have and what I consume.”