Following a long day, catching up on current events, especially one’s taking place globally, I sat down to decompress and take a “brain-break” filled with mindless scrolling, something I look forward to most evenings right before bed.
As I began my nightly ritual, mindless scrolling quickly became conscious as I noticed the quick change of emotions I felt coursing through me with each passing scroll.
I was met with a variety of media to consume. I first saw the “restock-my-kitchen” video in which containers of food are filled to the brim – because we can never have enough cereal, right? By the next scroll, the glaciers are melting and flowers are blooming in Antarctica – wait, that’s not normal. Following, I scrolled to see day-in-my-life videos of rich women, showcasing their lives filled with glitz and glamour – okay, cute. Only to be followed with clips of children being crushed in mines in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, mining for the materials used to make the devices we use everyday – devastatingly heartbreaking.
A roller-coaster of emotions to say the least, and by the end of my “brain-break” I was at a loss for words, unsure how I should feel.
How can half of my timeline be filled with blissful living, surrounded by unnecessary goods, while the other half is filled with horror and destruction.
We live in a society where capitalism thrives off of the continuous dissatisfaction of the consumer. In other words, we are taught to keep wanting more, which fuels the economy that is already backwards, fuels greenhouse gases with mass production, killing our planet, ultimately draining us of true satisfaction only found in acts of humanity.
Capitalism’s strenuous focus on building an economy meant to “distribute goods and services to people based on available resources and skills,” isn’t even doing that.
Although profits may be high, wages are still low; Americans are falling deeper and deeper into debt, poverty and homelessness is still on the rise, and don’t even get me started on healthcare.
In order for the country to continue to “thrive” at the level it does, it needs the funds to do so. The American dream has been instilled in citizens to continue to want to do more, resulting in the want of more.
The more that is wanted, the more needs to be produced, which then results in unsustainable practices in order to keep up.
The intended “brain break” of mindless scrolling sparked a consciousness in how I am as a consumer, and just how much overconsumption is a norm in this country.
This poses the many questions, are the goods we consume worth the inhumane practices used to produce them? Is it worth the destruction to our planet? And when will enough be enough?
