4 days ago
Is digital consumerism training us to stay in debt?
Though I've touched on the age of discernment and the importance of taste in the times we live in, the rise of a new series of brands, apps, and business models that rely on small scale transactions and loans to stay afloat has given me reason to reexamine the issue, specifically, digital consumerism.
Though most commonly seen today in the form of gambling apps and the rise of 'buy now, pay later' schemes — even for items that once required just a few weeks or months of saving — it's now easier than ever to delay payments, and just as easy to spiral into a cycle of debt. While that first shocking credit card statement after leaving home may feel like a rite of passage, the reality is that most people don't have the wealth or access to easily climb out of debt, or the financial literacy to avoid falling into it in the first it can and should be viewed as an issue of financial literacy, the fact of the matter is that the current popularity of these business models is based on taking advantage of vulnerable consumers. Most new consumers right now, Gen-Z, and other young people in the workforce, grew up with video games where micro transactions were just a click of their parents' credit card away. People might laugh about spending a couple hundred bucks on video game loot boxes or digital skins over the years — but the truth is, many of our brains have been wired to consume since the moment we were handed iPads as toddlers.
The simple answer is to have hobbies, not vices. Don't gamble, go out for dinner with your friends. Don't order a massive amount of takeout you have to spend three months paying off and regretting, go buy groceries.
Though a few simple tips might not mend all of your financial difficulties — far from it — an openness to being more critical about the kinds of low-grade products we allow ourselves to waste our money on could be beneficial. For me, I think about simple metaphors of bad workmen blaming their tools. If you don't get rich gambling on whatever it is you want to gamble on, you shouldn't be surprised. There is a reason people say, 'The house always wins.'
I've been on my own journey, and I've found that while it's easy to fall into the trap of micro-transactions — a chocolate bar here, a fidgety gadget there — much like the addictive pull of AI tools or the toxicity of social media, these cash-draining apps are ultimately a zero-sum game.
There are some who use these apps as journeymen; they invest a little once and coast on winnings and interest. Others simply grow bored or anxious with the incoming cycle of debt and reward, while the few and loud get addicted.
Heavy usage of apps and technology that rely on this sort of consumerism is widespread, and as with social media and culture, are most popular in communities hit hard by economic hardship, where luck or perseverance are the apparent keys to financial success. In reality, these apps are as predatory as email and phone scammers, and the true myth of them is believing that an individual can win while there are bots and algorithms run by most of these apps, unfettered by human emotion, designed to log most of the greatest victories in so-called 'fair' games.
If you want to waste money, just go into cryptocurrency.
