A consumer society is all the people that get products without a need, and that is turning into something natural that doesn’t seems to bother us

The author explain us that one of the principal society objectives is that after all the work we have in our lives we’ll finally end doing nothing

The reference groups are the groups where we all want to get in to be accepted, and to enter we have to follow a context in function of something, for example our dressing style, our hairstyle, it has to be the same to fix. However some people doesn’t matter to be “out”, the simple people, the people who can’t afford expensive things, and that don’t put rules to enjoy their lives

The consuming has become stronger, and the wish to be “in” and accepted has taken us to expect more from our products when we buy them, and because of that some activities are raising like:

Get something new: To be expecting a new product from the market that fulfil our expectative in contrast to the last product

Create new needs: Inventing and believe ourselves the need to get new stuff

Imagination: The art of creating, making, designing.

Motivation: To satisfy our needs (physical and psychological)

The relation between all this is the wish attitude that is created in us for getting new things and make the consumes to grow.

Often our consumption has to do with the reference groups since for wanting to belong to these, we consume things that can make us feel identified with them, these reference groups are infinite and that each person has their own ways of thinking, thus every day new groups appear reference.

Our need for innovation is another of the constants for which we are a consumer society, and that because of the ability to imagine and create new things that humans possess, continually force the market and industry to create new things for meet our "perceived needs."

All this added to our own ego, and our imaginary needs have led us to become a "consumer society" which unreasonably consumed and unlimited. ]]> http://e-a_of_new_media.lacoctelera.net/post/2007/10/24/the-consumer-society#comentarios http://e-a_of_new_media.lacoctelera.net/post/2007/10/24/the-new-media 2007-10-24T07:39:02+00:00

The internet is a positive media that benefits us in different aspects like in the labour, academic and personal world. But unfortunately, as many other things it also has a negative side because too many people use it for bad purposes, manipulate information, and cause physical and psychological damage to children, young people and adults.

With the internet we take a good advantage of all kind of information but if we don’t use it with carefulness and responsibility it can hurt us in many ways and make us obsessive and depressive people; because of this, it is really important for us to teach the next generations, the right way to use it.

The new generations are starting to be mixed to this web and it is going to capture their whole minds and space.

It is also important for us to teach our children to be sociable and taking to account the importance of the interaction with other people.

The people who spend long time in front of a computer don’t enjoy the real world and slowly, declines in talking among family member and friends.

People could use the internet just for little periods of time, for entertainment, to get information, to speak with family members or friends but not to have relationships where you don’t have a direct contact and you don’t know how this person quite is. So you can spend your time with friends of your group of school or work, gym etc.

Spending long time on internet chatting with people who you really don’t know, people who are so far and you should never see face to face is so bad. You are not living the real life where you enjoy of the environment, birds, water, animals, and the other people who can make you smile with a real gesture or a joke, that can look at his eyes, give him a real hug, do exercise, play soccer, kidding. This is the healthiest way of living because you can share things and time together but on internet you are really alone because you can see what other people write or say but you don’t feel this person and don’t know who they really are.

You could wait a day when you can meet him or her but spending time in a relationship like that isn’t healthy it could be depressing and isolate from the rest of the world.

The society of consumption is the people who live inside of a culture where they provide to supply their necessities by buying some products like food, clothes, water, houses etc… sometimes the consumption is unlimited so it’s out of control and in the society it is very frequent and it is produced by different causes like the “afán” de emulación (resemble to) the equality, the “afán” de novedad where new things are always better. Thinking in the status is the most important and if I have Money or many products I’ll be better than others or I’ll be happier.

The author explains about “teoría de la clase ociosa” that is the ideal of these kind of people who think that the ideal of life is the ocio where you don’t have to produce or do anything, because working is for slaves and that is related to “society of consumption” because the consumption makes people have that ideal of life of living without efforts and in a comfortable house doing nothing.

There are a lot of groups of reference and there are groups who show us by their clothes or objects, who they are, for example: tennis, jeans, caps a motorcycle and music Identify a group of young people and an adult could be an intruder if he goes to their meeting places and wear their clothes.

And other group is the contracultura who are people who don’t consume as much as the others so they are opposite to the narcissism and have solidarity with the people who can’t buy these articles or products. They are simple people that don’t use suits or fashion clothes. They use Jeans, cowboys and don’t know what a necktie is. Other group can be the executives with elegant clothes, and cars who travel and have a life style of power.

Some other concepts related to consumption are:

Afán de novedad: people think the new products are better than old ones. They want the newness because they are tired of the same and they wish to have new things and better to feel fine and increase them self-esteem.

Capacidad de crear nuevos deseos: the marketing offers to us some products. If the people have a reasonable sense to buying, the consumption would have a limited but if the people have an emptier concept of happiness and think that to have more products will do better them life is a capacity of make new wishes. For example: I’m not happy if I don’t have car or a computer because my neighbors have that is a concept that the consumption have and that isn’t true.

The motivation of consumption is also caused by the afán de igualdad, people want the equality, the emulation, security because the people can feel more security if have expensive articles provide to “compensate” an emptiness like it is the racism. The equality is for example all people in the university have a style of jeans if I don’t have this I’m different and I don’t feel good if I’m not like they are. That’s a mistake concept.

Nowadays we live into a society that cares a lot about the aesthetics and acceptance of people. These aesthetics and acceptance can only be acquired with material goods. This society is always in the pursuing of socioeconomic status that will give them the security to interact with the rest of the people around them.

The consumption has created a society called the consumption society; the main characteristics of these people are the need for buying things that they don’t need but they want, the need of getting the latest things in the market in order to feel good with other people and the need for being accepted. This is a dependent society because their only objective in life is to consume what will make them feel alive and accepted as members of the society. The activities of these people make them feel unsatisfied and also create a cycle that will rule their lives.

Something really attractive to become a part of the consumption society are the reference groups, these groups are like how consumption looks because they are icons that people want to be in. there are aesthetical requirements (clothing, jewelry, electronic devices, etc.) to be accepted as part of these groups. A person that gets inside of a reference group is forced to get also into the cycle of consumption which means to keep getting updated.

The industry plays a big roll in the consumption topic because is in charge of creating new desires for people by detecting the society’s weakness and transforming them into new products that people will want to get but that they don’t need. The consumption society will buy those products because of the hurry of buying the newest things in order to be updated and accepted in the society.

Paulo Ramos.

Internet is the world wide web and is the place where we all want to be because is the biggest source of information around the world and is also a place where we can meet a lot of people from all around the globe. The web is really fun and what makes it even more attractive is that in the net we can be whoever we want to be and we can also cheat people.

Another problem with the internet is that it is becoming a virtual world for all people because it is the main source of comunication, and this affects a lot the society because the people start being lonely and anti-social in their real lives. Nowadays some people prefer to have a conversation on the web than in the real life, and also some of them say that is easier to meet people on the web.

Internet shows us a whole world, so because of this some of us think that we don´t need anything else to live but the web and this is affecting our society and transforming it in a negative way. The worry thing about this is that the internet is affecting the ethics because trough the net we can lie, still, and a lot more, in conclusion we can become dishonest people (cheaters), this wrong acts affects our society ´s well being (us).

There is just one thing we can do about the negative effects of the internet and is not getting rid of it, because internet is really usefull when we use it for right purposes. The best way of solving this situation is by creating a culture of control for the use of internet, which means to start doing in the web just what we need, we can only do this by teaching people the right use of internet and start living our real lives as we should, because that´s why we are finally here for, so, let´s enjoy it!....

Paulo Ramos.

It has many advantages like allowing us to keep in contact with friends, relatives and colleagues around the world, at a reasonable cost, sometimes cheaper that a phone call or a letter sent by the local mail.
When trying to solve a problem or to do some investigation or any type of consultation you count with the possibility of exploring thousands of libraries and data bases of information at a world-wide level and in all the languages, having the advantage of accessing thousands of documents, newspapers, and programs as well as discussing any subject, from archaeology to zoology through the net.
We can also have access weather, political, economic information. We can have a virtual class and antivirus programs.
It is amazing what internet has brought to our lives. You can chat; go to a forum and share information and opinions in real time. On the Internet you are able to buy and sell articles at a good price and with the plus of having door to door service.
•With respect to a company it also has several advantages that help the trade, good development and knowledge of a company and whoever interested and in using a service, a device or only adquiring information of the company in order to have a successful.
•Other positives aspects its: Availability 24 hours to the day –7 days to the week – 365 Days to year
When there is anybody in the office, the clients can access the Web of the company. Webs never close.
Now everything can be measured: how many people have seen their spaces, how many people have clicked in them, how many people asked for more information or tariffs, how many sales one publicity have produced, how many pages have been consulted by the users? What selection of the Web is the most popular? What is the most common route? What is the most visited web page? How many people arrive for the first time and how many repeat?

Interchange of knowledge
It is possible to invite other people so that they contribute in the content of Web pages and blogs, to evaluate the products and services or give advice to other users, and then to contribute to them with publications of news bulletins.
Low cost
At the present time we can find companies lending of Internet that give very good prices by the use of their service on the net. It is enough with comparing the cost of sending 25.000 letters by conventional mail with the cost to sending 250,000 electronics mail.
This has advantages but also some disadvantages finding good information is as possible as finding bad one (pornography, violence, terrorism) that can to often affect specially to the child who can make use of the Internet without a authorization of them parents or tutors or without supervision of an adult.
When one begins to use the Internet and to know advantages that this has in our life and the way it makes our life easy, people can spend too much time in front a computer and becoming addicted doesn’t live the real and social life.
The students can effort less and have a bad use of it with the copy paste helping to student do not think and do not learn.

It is not totally independent and this has electrical dependency of energy. If there is a cut of energy in the house, internet is useless.
The piracy of products in the Internet is very common.
Part of information offered has bad quality without references or author information.
Danger of robbery of information exists. Hackers
It isn’t assured confidentiality and it is possible transmission of virus through the transference of files.
With all this census of advantages and disadvantages that presents the internet in our lives and our media we can say that it is a great advance that the man has made and that can and should be used but with a responsible kind to benefit from it.

By Diana Rodas