Socities psychology

The video “The Story of Stuff” gives a lot of information on what goes through the process of making a consumer item like an ipod for example. It gives informative details on how it starts from the Earth, to the factories where it is made, to the consumer’s shopping building, then to their home, and finally to the disposal of that item that they have bought. It’s a through process that takes much of the Earth’s natural resources and results in something that just creates more garbage. What Allen D. Kanner and Mary E. Gomes describe in their essay, “The All-Consuming Self” is how we, as Americans, are one of the top world consumers and have actually admitted to not stopping our world consumption. They say that the companies have found ways that trick our mind into buying their product. They create images that attract the viewer and, according to Kanner and Gomes, “…advertisers need to create a false image of the ideal consumer, one which people will wish to emulate.”

Companies have found ways to sell their product without changing much. All they do differently is convince the viewer that they are watching someone who has made a better life for themselves, that is really just a false life, just by buying that companies product. The commercials make the viewer think that they need this product and that if they don’t get it, they will never be successful. It has become more than some marketing trick and is now a way of life. According to both Kanner and Gomes, “According to Business Week, the average American is exposed to about three thousand ads a day.” Three thousand ads a day they say is what we view daily and what companies shove into our faces to buy their product. It’s become something more than just selling a product but now has actually become a way of life because of how much advertising has changed us as a society.

Kanner, Allen D., and Mary E. Gomes. The All-Consuming Self.