Why Overconsumption Can Actually Harm Your Mental Health
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Meg Locker, 28, didn’t realize that she was spending a lot of time and money shopping. Last January, while cleaning, she tried to take stock of how many bottles of face and body lotion she had and was shocked to see how many unopened products there were. She began to take inventory of hauls from other shopping trips and noticed that not all of her clothing fit in her closet; she had to step over tote bags from previous shopping trips. “It's terrifying,” she says. “It wasn't until it was all piled up that I was like, ‘I could literally go years without needing to buy something.’”
Like many others in their 20s, Locker was sold a lifestyle by social media content creators, who often have much larger budgets than she does (and probably some brand deals). Images of aesthetically placed rows of body scrubs and other beauty and hygiene products abound online, punctuated by enthusiastic endorsements of a new “holy grail” product you must have. Content creators show off what feels like a never-ending wardrobe, with no outfits repeated on their perfectly curated Instagram feeds.
An elevated lifestyle populated by an abundance of products has become so normal on social media that many young people like Locker think they should try to replicate it — only to find their homes filled to the brim and their bank accounts drained. But these trends are impacting more than just consumers' space and finances: Overconsumption may be impacting our mental health.
Cathrine Jansson-Boyd, a professor of consumer psychology at Anglia Ruskin University in England, explained that though we don’t personally know the content creators on social media, we still compare ourselves to them. This, in part, drives some of the impulse to buy more things than we actually need, even if we don’t have the same lifestyle as the creators we follow online. We feel like we could become closer to them or feel better about our lives if we have similar outfits or gadgets.
“It’s got to do with our self-worth sometimes,” Jansson-Boyd tells Teen Vogue. “We are very social creatures and we compare ourselves against others all the time. And the fact that we engage in this social comparison, we’re comparing upwards to someone we kind of think is, for whatever reason, superior to us.”
Locker admits that she used shopping to try and emulate influencers she admired to soothe negative feelings. She’d have a rough week at work and would spend time unwinding by heading to a department store. “Then before I know it, I'm spending $300 essentially on junk,” she lamented. “Some of it is products that I'm still using, but some of it is also ridiculous home decor items that they have right at the entry.”
GREY LINE
Kelsey Matheson-Daly, 33, posted on Threads at the end of 2024 that she wanted to stop overconsuming in 2025. She says she did it to hold herself accountable after seeing that she was buying too much clothing online. Like Locker, Matheson-Daly would find clothes in the back of her closet with the tags still on. “It's so easy to purchase with minimal clicks, and our access to things that other people have is limitless because of the algorithm and scrolling,” she wrote in an email to Teen Vogue.
But fashion content and quick checkouts didn’t just make it easier to buy more, it allowed her to rationalize impulse purchases. “Instead of looking in my closet, where I have plenty of outfits that I could put together to feel more professional in a work-from-home setting, I would purchase new items to ‘fix’ the issue,” Matheson-Daly says.
Anna Lembke, MD, a professor and chief of the Addiction Medicine Dual Diagnosis Clinic at Stanford University and the author of Dopamine Nation, explains that shopping does make people feel better. However, that joy is temporary.
“We know from human brain imaging studies that monetary rewards light up the same reward pathway as drugs and alcohol, so we can infer that shopping also activates our reward pathway,” Dr. Lembke says. “It's very common for people to shop as a way to change the way they feel, to destress, to decrease anxiety or depression.”
She points out that social media can spark dependence. Some people may experience irritation and anxiety if they’re used to scrolling regularly and then don't have the option of going online. Dr. Lembke suggests taking breaks from platforms that make impulse shopping easier.
Apart from becoming accustomed to shopping and scrolling online, changes in how clothing is produced can also affect mental health. Because clothing is increasingly fast fashion, once discarded, it breaks down into microfibers and microplastics that scatter into waterways and the soil worldwide. It’s gotten so bad that scientists have found tiny bits of plastics in remote environments, including Antarctica’s snow. Once she started shopping less and learned more about the impacts of overconsumption on the planet and her wallet, Locker now thinks about how much of her stuff will one day sit in a landfill.
Underconsumption rose as an online trend in 2024, garnering online explainers and video essays. Some content creators are also fighting back against the consumerism promoted in online posts. Diana Wiebe, the 31-year-old behind the TikTok account depressiondotgov, makes videos where she points out that many haul videos are just peddling what she calls “garbage.” “Did you even try those on?” she says in a stitched video of someone mindlessly throwing a box of shoes into their shopping cart at Target during a holiday-themed shopping trip.
Related: What Is Underconsumption Core? Experts Explain the Trend Putting Dirty Shoes All Over Your Feed
Wiebe’s videos were inspired in part by seeing how people were influenced to buy low-quality home goods and clothing in well-edited social media videos. The videos are also inspired by how she used to self-soothe after work by going shopping. She’d get her “little serotonin boost” at a store like T.J. Maxx and spend money she should have been putting into savings. “I wasn't addressing the main problem, which is that I wasn't happy in my job, and I needed to figure that out,” she tells Teen Vogue. And now she calls out overconsumption for what it is: a bad habit that’s only going to make life more difficult down the road.
Some may find it harder to break the overconsumption habit, even if it has led to money problems and the stress of keeping up with wealthier influencers. Jansson-Boyd advises anyone in that camp to find other activities to fill the space that shopping and scrolling once did. She also warns against shopping when you are stressed. “As soon as you have strong emotions involved, you tend to be persuaded by messaging,” Jansson-Boyd says. “Take a step back from anything you are considering purchasing and come back to it. And if you still really want it, then I would say buy it unless it's very expensive.”
Like Wiebe, Locker changed how she used her social media accounts. She began posting about her debt repayment journey on TikTok and has gained over 90,000 followers. And she stopped buying so much. It’s allowed her to document her lifestyle changes and has helped her become realistic about her fashion wants versus what she actually needs. “I can't be spending like an influencer. I don't have influencer money,” she says. “I need to make sure I'm taking care of myself financially and not killing myself for these tchotchkes…stuff that isn't going to mean anything to my future children or when I leave this planet.”
Matheson-Daly came to a similar conclusion. She aims to buy no new clothing in 2025, to focus on what she already has, and to pursue hobbies and experiences she can share with loved ones. “My life is certainly not perfect, but it's pretty great overall, so why am I trying to be like that influencer who looks nothing like me and lives a completely different lifestyle than me,” she said in an email. “It's this giant rabbit hole of inadequacy, and I don't want to feed into it anymore.”
Originally Appeared on Teen Vogue
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