America's Dopamine-Fueled Shopping Addiction

Sales are booming, but malls are dying. What happened? Watch "The Death and Afterlife of the Mall:" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ShfoJw6KlxA&list=PLDamP-pfOskO7zQRs2x7CnPHeiZSk43Nj&

Nobody knows this better than UPS drivers. They know where every shopper / hoarder on their route lives.

I think the core issue is that people look at shopping as an activity.. like going to the amusement park or going to the movies.. when I was younger and my fiends would ask me if I want to going shopping, I’d be like “I don’t have anything to buy”, then I realized, they went to the mall hopping to FIND something to buy. As a person who grew up lower income, that was mind boggling to me.

This is why I like to do "fake shopping" online. I look at products, decide which ones I want to buy, enjoy them for a bit, and then eventually just exit out of the website instead of buying. It's fun, saves money, and keeps my home from filling up with stuff I definitely don't need.

I must be abnormal. I never get a dopamine hit when I spend money, I have a heart attack.

Great but let's talk about the real reason why this is happening. Cheap-as-hell fast fashion outlets.

"A year of no shopping" is known as "life" for an increasinng percentage of us.

I used to be very addicted to shopping. It was so bad we were living paycheck to paycheck. It was hurting my family. I realized its not everything is about materialism. Its about spending time with your family & making moments

Shopping is a psychological issue. We buy products to fill the emptiness. And like the person said, getting a package in the mail, is like getting a Christmas present each day. So in order for me to be careful on my spending and to fill the craving. I just buy a used book every two weeks or so.

How depressing!!! I heard a great saying once, you spend the first half of your life accumulating stuff and the second half getting rid of it. Man is that ever true.

Minimalism has never looked so good

Sometimes I feel like crap about myself for not having a big, beautiful wardrobe and a drawer full of makeup. Family and friends even make fun of me for "acting/looking poor" because I've had roughly the same wardrobe for 3 years and don't throw anything out until it's almost falling apart... then I remember the toxic industries of fast fashion and rampant consumerism for nothing other than perceived social status and I get over it.

"Consumers want cheaper goods" is an interesting take, Atlantic. Perhaps the large corporations that supply these goods want to increase their profits and do so by making goods cheaper and under paying factory workers in other countries. Consumers should be aware of their shopping habits, but let's not pretend like the companies and corporations selling these goods are not at fault.

I do professional property clean outs for a living and the amount of waste I've seen and handled is shocking. People often times just abandon mountains of items - residentially and commercially - and just move on. I've come to see this orgy of material acquisition as a form of collective insanity driven largely by advertising and irresponsible manufacturing and distribution practices.

Time for m a r i e k o n d o to step in.

People say I'm a minimalist. I'm actually just a cheapskate

Almost everyone I know says "I can't afford to save for retirement" while simultaneously spending obscene amounts of cash on unnecessary disposable crap and/or eating out.

The problem with textile recycling is that you can't keep the recycle loop on going indefinitely. It's not like glass that can be broken down and remade over and over again. When you break down the fibers of the clothing it loses a lot of it's strength and quality and you end up with sub-par clothing. It's also extremely difficult to recycle mixed fabrics. Often, when clothing is recycled it's broken down into a pulp called shoddy fabric and it's then used for blankets and furniture stuffing as that's what it's only good for. We have such a huge problem because there is no much waste out there from fast fashion that's already poor quality. Thrift stores/ charity shops are overwhelmed with crap that is too low quality to sell. And a lot of it gets sold onto third world countries which hurts their local economy by putting their own textile industries out of business. And that's not even going into the environmental impact both with manufacturing and disposal. Ultimately we need to change consumer habits. We need to buy less stuff in the first place. I think this is the hardest task because how do you make customers want less?

I get a dopamine hit from NOT buying excessive or unnecessary things.

I agree with other comments already posted here, sadly people see shopping as an activity these days. Something that I've noticed in the last few years or so (and I think social media is to blame for this) is that so many people don't really seem to have any hobbies or interests anymore, so in turn, they see shopping as recreation. Having hobbies you enjoy to fill up your free time with can be a huge deterrent when it comes to developing addictions, and shopping just like any other addiction, should be taken seriously.