What leads to increase consumerism among young people?

Solbridge International School of Business

COM114: Writing and Presentation skill (001)

Professor: Jeffrey Alan Miller

Student: Beisenbayeva Zhansaya

2021
 Do you know what is the biggest human issue in the current time? You might think about

global warming or the lack of resources. In fact, it is consumerism. Even huge problems such as

global warming and lack of resources were consequences of consumerism. Consumerism is a

phenomenon when people devour a greater amount of goods than they need. Consumerism is led

by three main factors: globalization, peer pressure, and marketing tricks. Each person on the

Earth goes through this process consciously or not, especially it is related to a young generation

who still grows up and is more sensitive to external factors than the older generation.

One of the factors associated with increasing consumerism among young people is

globalization. The young generation was born during the globalization process and has a

completely different childhood than the previous generation. Their life is full of technologies,

information and entertainment activities which give them wider opportunities to develop as a

person. Young people have a lot of new products that does not exist several decades ago and try

to consume each thing that they found interesting. For example, kids at an age of 7 or 8 already

have their own mobile phone and even use social networks which is the main influencer in

current days. Teenagers also use social network sites such as Instagram, Tiktok, Twitter and

always observe cloth brands on celebrities or bloggers, new challenge videos with throwing food

or ripping clothes which seduce them to reply to everything and show it in their own account. It

leads to food waste, spoiling clothes, and buying a new one. As a result, it turns to consumerism.

The next aspect that should be emphasized is peer pressure. People always live in a

certain community such as kindergarten, school or university where everyone depends on each

other’s opinion or always observe new goods. It considers as a closed society and clearly shows

social inequality between people. For instance, classmates closely communicate with each other

during the whole year and observe each other. When someone buys new iPhone others also want

it even if their phone was bought almost a year ago. Moreover, some students could judge others

for an old model of phone, non-brand cloth and absence of a car. Due to peer pressure, a lot of

students force parents to buy new goods. Students who can afford it, but do not want to spend
money also would buy something new because of peer pressure. During school time it is hard to

combat classmates’ pressure because of daily interaction with each of them. Consequently,

people turn under someone’s influence and would be involved in the consumerism process.

On no account should the fact that marketing tricks have a big influence on people should

be ignored. A lot of stores make special offers such as 1+1 or 2+1 which seduce customers to

buy more than they need in fact. Furthermore, some marts give a free present when a person

buys more than a certain number of products or sum of money which makes people think about

purchasing additional units of goods to receive another one. In a few cases, celebrities are also

involved in marketing tricks. For example, idols in Korea get an exclusive contract with a brand

and promote it. Marketers analyze the target audience and choose a certain group or solo artist.

In the end, the issue product and make a special gift such as photo cards or postcards of idols for

people who will buy it. One of the examples is the collaboration of Aespa and Clio. Customers

had to buy the product of Clio to get photo cards of Aespa members. There were a lot of fans

who bought everything, and goods were sold out. After that, customers had to do registration to

purchase the product. Respectively, it leads to consumerism.

Taking everything into consideration, consumerism is a big issue that has its causes and

effects. Young people are more sensitive to external factors; therefore, consumerism is a

widespread phenomenon among them. A lot of factors can lead to consumerism such as

globalization, peer pressure, and marketing tricks. Consumerism also can be a reason for the

appearance of global issues that could change the whole world such as global warming and lack

of resources. Therefore, consumerism is the biggest threat to the human being.