Preview

CONSUMPTION DIARY

Better Essays
Open Document
Open Document
1239 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
CONSUMPTION DIARY
CONSUMPTION DIARY :
THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN MY NEEDS AND WANTS IN A WEEK

In today’s society, it is noticeable that the economics is acknowledging and describing the difference between needs and wants. What people need to realize is that, do we want them or do we really need them? People nowadays buy things everyday and often tend to get their wants more than needs compare to people in the 1800s, who survived without wanting or desire towards something. Those days it is common to have the needs before their wants because of the economy. Based on my evaluation, I think that our needs are not unlimited but our wants are limited when comes to consumer society and it’s cost, advertising and social obligations or status. These factors influences and makes us want to buy more things that we supposedly need. It is more likely a vicious circle, the more we need the more we want. This cycle will continue to evolve every day until an external factor breaks the cycle. Therefore, my analysis as an individual illuminate the study of two specific item that I have purchased for a week to differentiate between my needs and wants.
A need is something that we cannot live suitably without, which implies things that absolutely necessary to our lives. This refers to a general feeling of needing basic necessities which includes needing physical items such as food, clothing and a place to live. Besides, needs also refers to a general needs and specific needs. For example, I need something to cover myself during the rainy season is a general need, while I need an umbrella is a specific need. As an individual needing something to cover myself during the rainy season, I could have buy a raincoat, rain jacket or a leather hooded jacket instead of needing an umbrella. Therefore, from the above example it shows that general needs can be satisfied in various way based on the person’s specific needs.
Furthermore, to support my statement above I have assigned the purchased item, Helium



Cited: Campbell, Colin. "The Need-Want Rhetorics in Academic Discussion." Campbell, Colin. Consumption and the Rhetorics of Need and Want. Oxford University Press and Design History Society, 2013. 240. Print. David. Discerning the Difference between Needs and Wants. n.d. Web. 29 September 2013. Erin Huffstetler. How to Distinguish Between the Wants vs. Needs. 2013. web. 29 September 2013. Oxford Dictionarie. consumer society. 2013. Web. 28 September 2013. Press, Studio. What Is Social Responsibility? n.d. Web. 29 September 2013.

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    The psychology of buying anything resolute from their egos. Is it status, buyers are seeking for or is it the value and self-gain? The illusion that people with more assets have it all figured out and are content has encouraged people to seek the same prospects. The author explains, “Everything Now is an extreme example of an individualistic society, hence our tendency is to egocentric, focusing on the improvement of one’s self and circumstances, with the self- actualization at the zenith” (McKevitt 146). To check off an item on the fulfillment list only evokes the next item down; seemingly an endless cycle of temporary satisfaction. Personal fulfillment remains an important factor. Advertisers manipulated the consumers into believing the wants in life are needs. It has become a necessity to people to keep buying a product even though the product has less advanced. This ideology lies from people’s self-actualization and esteem: fulfillment, achievement, status, and reputation, in between: “[I]ndividual is paramount” (Mckevitt 146). In developed nations, there is an emphasis on individualism and advertisers use this strategy to evoke a willingness to buy in favor improving self-esteem. Consumers make purchase decisions based off their emotions and are easily persuaded when advertisers engage with consumer on a personal…

    • 910 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Study9

    • 766 Words
    • 3 Pages

    -Things people believe are necessary for their everyday life. There are not just things that people require to stay alive. Needs can also be things that people consider necessary to maintain their lifestyle or quality of life.…

    • 766 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    - Needs are those things that we require in order to feel part of society and achieve optimal wellbeing. There are three different ways in which you can classify needs……

    • 3223 Words
    • 13 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    In the marketing world, it is well known that the basic marketing principles of wants, needs and demands are important components to understand as it provides information to marketers to create products/ experiences to satisfy the customers needs, wants and demands. Human needs are understood as a basic concept of marketing, which is defined as a state of sensed scarcity (Armstrong et al. 2015). Needs are essential…

    • 760 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Hinkle, J. L., Fitzpatrick, E., & Oskrochi, G. R. (2009). Identifying the Perception of Needs of…

    • 1850 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    A need is something that you must have and is essential to have in order live and function.…

    • 992 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    MHR 405

    • 358 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Needs are goal-directed forces that people experience. They are the motivational forces of emotions channeled toward particular goals to correct deficiencies or imbalances.…

    • 358 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Thomas Sowell: Needs

    • 454 Words
    • 2 Pages

    In Thomas Sowell’s Needs, the author defines the word need as misinterpretation of the word want. A want is a desire of an individual or individuals that are not deemed necessary. It fulfills a longing or satisfaction and can be described as material value. According to Sowell, the things people need are not realistic because of its prices. These needs are usually items that are out of reach or difficult to obtain. This includes items of high prices and are associated with financial wealth and upper class status.…

    • 454 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Popular

    • 11611 Words
    • 47 Pages

    16. According to the Hierarchy of Needs, consumers are motivated to first satisfy their higher-order needs,…

    • 11611 Words
    • 47 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Process Premise

    • 994 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Needs require some sort of satisfaction. According to Maslow, people have various kinds of needs then emerge, subside, and then reemerge. People have basic needs such as food, water and shelter; then there are security needs, or the ability to continue to fulfil the basic needs of life; thirdly there are belongingness needs which are the needs to interact with others and identify as a group; next are love and esteem needs which are the needs to be valued by members of the groups with which we affiliate; lastly are self-actualization needs which are the needs to achieve one’s full potential or capability.…

    • 994 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Planned Obsolescence

    • 1797 Words
    • 8 Pages

    Our enormously productive economy demands that we make consumption our way of life, that we convert the buying and use of goods into rituals, that we seek our spiritual satisfactions, our ego satisfactions, in consumption… We need things consumed, burned up, worn out, replaced, and discarded at an ever increasing pace. (Lebow, Price Competition in 1955)…

    • 1797 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Positive Attitudes

    • 3711 Words
    • 15 Pages

    New necessities: What consumers can 't live without; Despite recession, products and services manage to move up the need-want continuum, MATT CARMICHAEL. Advertising Age. Chicago: Nov 14, 2011. Vol…

    • 3711 Words
    • 15 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    we are what we buy

    • 2002 Words
    • 6 Pages

    We live in a modern world where full of mass consumption, after industrial revolutions, the new technology allowed productive forces to be improved significantly as the development of history. Companies gained the ability to quickly produce a great deal of material items. In order to make profits via these products or services they offered, they persuade people to purchase them by adopting different marketing means. As a result of technologically and financially prosperity, and of course the marketing force, a material consumption culture had been created and we can simply argue that we cannot live without consumption nowadays, it is not only about buying of what we need, its influence had extended to the identities of our-self due to that the power of marketing allows consumers to gain the signs of success, achievement, prosperity and so on, through their consumptions. Actually, we not only construct our identities based on what we purchased, but we use others’ consumption to infer their identities.…

    • 2002 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    * A need is a state of felt deprivation and a want is the form a human need takes as shaped by culture and individual personality.…

    • 3253 Words
    • 14 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    You asked me to define the difference between want and need. And before I could write this essay to you, I had to think about the statement for a while. I had to look up the definition for both of the words want and need. Want technically means to wish for, or to desire. And need means to require, or a necessity, according to the Webster’s New World Dictionary. These two words might mean very different things, but yet they get mistaken for each other almost all the time. I could say that I need that new designer t-shirt that fits me perfectly, but we both know that I don’t need it. I want it. Being a teenager has me believing that I need materialistic things. All teenagers could say the same. I’m going to make a list for you of the things I need, and what I want.…

    • 343 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays