How digital platforms encourage consumeristic behaviours.

An academic and research based multimedia major-work.

What is consumerism?

Consumerism is the idea that people will continue to want the next best item to satisfy their ‘needs’ (Wong, 2008). Consumerism is a product of capitalism, which puts a price on everything; even materials and services that are considered human rights; capitalism aims to profit from anything it can (Muhammad, 2016). Olorunda (2011) describes how “Our culture of mass consumption has bred these “supershoppers”” (p.184), who will line up for every sale or special and even wait outside of stores in the cold for hours before a store opens as seen below reported by Firstpost (2025) in September.

According to Zerlang (2023), shopping centres were initially intended to be a space for people to connect and socialise, containing restaurants, a bar, a library and so on; spaces where people are to enjoy the company of each other or conclude business. Although, socialisation came at the cost of consuming commercial goods. Fast forward to 2025 when people are viewing hundreds to thousands of advertisements a day and have hundreds of shopping platforms at their fingertips throughout the day.

How do people engage in consumerism?

Impulsive shopping is estimated to account for 40% of digital commerce (Statistica, as cited in Abott, 2023). Two aspects of consumeristic behaviours that will be focused on are fast fashion and technological trends. Fast fashion refers to trending items that are quickly produced then sold for low prices, says Hardy from Vogue (2024). Items that are ‘in season’ will soon go out of trend and be replaced by the next popular items.

Influencers are encouraged to promote brands through content

Kowalewicz (2022) from Forbes says that consumers are more likely to purchase from a brand that can relate to their customers. While it seems difficult for a multi-million-dollar brand to relate to their working-class customers, the solution is for companies to hire influencers to promote their products on digital platforms such as Instagram or TikTok, giving them a more human feel. Online influencers who are employed by companies will often have a following of about 10,000 to 100,000 (Clothing Digest, 2025) that trust the influencer, which makes them attractive to these companies. Therefore, their followers are likely to believe that the product being promoted is worth buying.

Influencers on digital platforms cannot exist successfully without consumerism; they promote products and lifestyles by making them look appealing. Their ‘purpose’ is to ‘influence’ spending habits, ultimately for their own gain.

Digital marketing makes it easy for brands to target consumers.

‘Mall walking’, which became popular in the 1990s (Zerlang, 2023), is comparable with online shopping in a sense. Mall walking is an activity that allowed people to window shop in “cathedrals of commerce” (p.214) while exercising. Online shopping on the other hand contains the window-shopping aspect without the exercise; online shopping has made consumers lazier and have easier access to commerce.

Digital marketing allows brands to reach their target customers much more easily compared to advertising in print media. Kenton (2025) says that mobile device features like location can help marketers in advertising to specific audiences rather than general demographics. Cookies online are small files that are saved to a browser when accessing websites (Hewson, 2024). Google (n.d) uses cookies to personalise advertisements, so websites you see while using the search engine Google will share information like the website name, shopping cart items, links clicked and so on.

Digital platforms are a marketer’s and consumer’s paradise and encourage the parasitic relationship between the two.

Fast fashion trends on digital platforms

“What once took months to spread through traditional fashion channels now happens in days or even hours as content goes viral across digital spaces” (Clothing Digest, 2025, n.p). TikTok promotes trends that end just as quickly as they began, but the products associated with them live on much longer, often in landfill. These are goods that we take for granted in a world that glorifies and rewards consumerism.

Clothing has been a symbol of status for centuries, at least dating back prior to the 1850s when the colour purple was a symbol of royalty as the source of the pigment was so rare that one ounce required 250,000 sea snails (Andrews, 2025). Digital platforms allow users to use their consumption as a status symbol.

Shein is a major culprit of cheap fast fashion as they provide clothes with a high turnover for extremely cheap prices. Influencers will often upload ‘Shein hauls’ on TikTok, sometimes ordering over 40 items of accessories and clothing. The low cost of Shein items allows for people to consume clothing that they do not need but want.

Corporations encouraging mobile phone consumption

Apple has been fined in the past for slowing down the performance in its older products to “prevent the device from unexpectedly shutting down during these conditions” (Fox, 2017, n.p), as the older model’s batteries are unable to perform well once the IOS is updated. Apple claims that this was not a strategy to quietly but sternly encourage people to buy new, often more expensive products, but to make phones last longer (Fox, 2017).

Corporations that have a monopoly on mobile phones will release a new mobile phone not long after the previous one, with little to no changes or improvements. There are literally people who sleep outside of Apple stores.

People wanting to keep up to date with latest technology as phones have become a status symbol, often promoting the drive to get the next best and expensive phone.

Who suffers from a consumeristic society?

Katuala (2024, n.p) states that globalisation succeeds at the detriment of “producers, people and the environment in emerging countries”. Globalisation has provided many more options of goods for people to consume from overseas. Consumerism has detrimental effects on the environment and the people who work to create these goods. Environmental, social security and protection systems are struggling which is demonstrated by worldwide natural disasters which have been exacerbated by climate change (Panizzut et al, 2021).

According to Delgado et al. (2024), the process of mining lithium results in 90% of the water containing the lithium to be lost through evaporation. “This process has resulted in a significant drop in groundwater levels of more than 10 m in the past 15 years” (p.14). Delgato et al. (2024) explain how this groundwater majorly affects Indigenous people in Chile as this is a main source of water for them.

Landfills in Sydney alone are reaching their limit and expected to reach capacity by 2030 (EPA, n.d). In 2023, Australia alone sent 222,000 tonnes of clothing to landfill (Seamless, 2024), landfills that are expected to reach capacity by 2030. Large corporations who benefit from consumerism must change their business models.

H. Lee Douglas (personal communication, September 19, 2025) explained that there are currently discussions at a local Council level in Australia regarding incinerators to burn rubbish rather than encouraging circular economies where items are reused and recycled. Corporations may resort to burning rubbish which will pollute the air; if people continue to ignore the urgency of climate action, conditions will worsen for those who natural disasters naturally affect.

Secretary-General of United Nations (UN) António Guterres calls for change in every sector, specifically the fashion industry, as it is a major contributor to a global waste crisis (United Nations. 2025). This cycle of consumeristic behaviour that is fuelled by a social pressure to stay on top of trends is detrimental to our planet.

Who benefits from a consumeristic society?

A major benefit of consumerism can be boiled down to boosting the economy and increasing the production of goods and services. Gross domestic product (GDP), which is affected by consumption, investment, government, exports and imports, represents the market value of goods and services within a country (Stobierski, 2021). Therefore, the more people are consuming products and services, the “economic health” (Stobierski, 2021, n.p) of the country is higher.

The 5 richest people in the world, according to Forbes (n.d) are, Elon Musk, Larry Ellison, Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos and Larry Page with a combined net worth of $1.53 Trillion. Ultimately, a consumeristic society is to the benefit of companies, and the detriment of consumers.

Is ethical consumerism possible in 2025?

Katuala (2024) argues that ‘ethical consumerism’ demonstrates critical thinking influenced by one’s ethics. One’s ethics may consider social, environmental and animal impact. To consume ethically is to buy products that are recycled and reusing items you already own. Consuming ethically can mean buying second hand clothing to minimise the demand for new clothing or learning how to mend your own damaged clothing. Understanding how to recycle electronics with rechargeable batteries is important in consuming ethically as lithium is commonly used in rechargeable batteries. “Only three percent of what is sold in Australia is collected and sent offshore for recycling” (Ruether, 2025, n.p).

According to Delago et al. (2024), “demand for developing storage and battery-to-battery systems will double every 5–10 years”. This demand derives from consumers asking for sustainable energy sources. CSIRO is investigating how they can maximise the energy used before a battery reaches its ‘end-of-life, for example, using an electric vehicle battery to possibly power homes or the grid (Ruether, 2025).

Conclusion

Digital platforms promote consumerism, and everyone worldwide falls victim to it one way or another. Be it spending the last of your paycheque on a materialistic item that you do not really need, or people in third world countries mining lithium for your iPhone 17. The detriment caused by consumerism does not end there.

“Li is extensively used in batteries, and battery-driven vehicles are growing exponentially to meet the carbon reduction goal of the Paris agreement in 2015” (Chandrasekharam et al., 2024, p.1). Lithium is a valuable material in moving into a future where fossil fuels are a thing of the past. Organisations need to work to understand how to best utilise lithium batteries, and consumers must understand how to recycle their electronic devices.

Influencers are not the root cause of this whole system that glorifies consumerism, but a product of it that also benefit from consumerism. Muhammad (2016) argues that structural changes will not occur only through individuals making lifestyle changes. Therefore, the large worldwide corporations producing nonessential materials must make structural changes to reduce landfill and emissions.

All our materialistic goods deserve a second, third and fourth life, since this planet we are on isn’t going anywhere anytime soon.