Apple and Consumerism

This September, Apple released the iPhone 7, and had thousands of crazed consumers lined up to be one of the first to own this new product. The new iPhone boasts faster speeds, an advanced camera, survivability if dropped in a toilet, and the controversial loss of the headphone jack.

Despite all these fancy features, the iPhone 7 is really not so different from the original iPhone released in 2007. You can text and call someone across the globe, send pictures, and download apps. Yet, people are still obsessed with having the latest device, and are forking over hundreds of dollars to buy the new phone. Unfortunately, this reflects our society’s extreme consumerism, and flawed priorities. There is no reason for someone to buy the next iPhone when they already have a perfectly functioning one, yet in the last 9 years many people have had upwards of 4 or 5 phones!

Older generations often speak of a time of when something was broken, they fixed it. They used machines until they absolutely could not function anymore. Today, that mentality has changed. As soon as a device breaks, people insist on buying a new one. If an iPhone screen cracks, you can get a new one immediately.

This insistence for new things is incredibly wasteful, and Apple is one of the biggest drivers behind our flawed mentality. They release new products yearly with minimal changes, yet they insist that you buy all the new products by changing the charger cord adapter, or eliminating the headphone jack. Their phones are made to last only a couple of years, so people are forced to buy new ones even if they don’t want to.

While Apple is a big offender, they are just a prominent symbol of society as a whole. Individual people must make a conscious effort to consume less in order to make a change and adapt for a time of limited resources. It is difficult to resist consumerist tendencies in this day and age, but ultimately buying things only when you need them will have vast economic and environmental benefits. The technology industry won’t change unless the public changes their mindsets and tendencies. While it may be difficult to adjust your affluence, and avoid buying the next new device, it is absolutely worth it.