Most people presumably watch the A&E show Hoarders to gawk at people who lack self-control and have allowed themselves to live in squalor. But then there’s another subset of the viewership, who watch because they see a little too much of themselves in the subjects. [More]
materialism
Dalai Lama On The Recession: See, Money Can't Buy You Love
By 4.25.09
Is the recession making you sad? Then go hug a friend because your money doesn’t care and can’t make you happy, the Dalai Lama reminded us yesterday. The exiled Tibetan leader said that if nothing else, the economic crisis is doing an excellent job showing people the limit of money.
Simplicity Is Best: Why Materialism Is Only Going To Screw Up Your Life
By 8.6.08
Over at the US News & World Report Alpha Consumer blog there’s an interview with Tim Kasser, author of The High Price of Materialism, about why and how materialism will not make you happy. In fact, it very well might make you sad.
"Black Friday Is Obscene And Needs To Die"
By 11.28.07
SF Gate columnist Mark Morford hates Black Friday, and he’s written an over-the-top Network-style screed against it, backing it up with some cringe-inducing YouTube clips of giddy, running Americans swarming into retail outlets last Friday morning.
Shallow Materialism Caused By Low Self-Esteem?
By 11.26.07
A new study in the Journal of Consumer Research says that there may be an actual causal relationship between materialism and low self-esteem in teenagers. The study’s authors, Lan Nguyen Chaplin from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and Deborah Roedder John of the University of Minnesota, “studied children of different age groups and found that, generally, self-esteem increases from middle childhood (8-9 years) to early adolescence (12-13 years), but then declines during adolescence until the end of high school (16-18 years). This mirrors patterns in materialism, which increases in early adolescence but decreases in late adolescence during the transition into young adulthood,” says a press release about the study.
