Spending boom fuelled by the desire for happiness People's spending habits today are influenced more by the ebb and flow of personal relationships than the desire for material goods, according to research. While spending patterns in the 1960s were characterised by fulfilling basic needs and in the 1980s by materialism, the trend now is towards personal fulfilment and emotional happiness. http://news.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2005/08/01/nspend01.xml Buying lots of metal albums, watching lotsa movies, talking about all the cool 'n' hip books, DVDs, CDs and art objects you have. Yep. Nailed. You're typical, no matter how "underground" or "emo sensitive" (LOL) you are.
Yes, but why do those bought items make other people happy? Wouldn't that still mean that while buying items are for personal relationship reasons, people are still being materialistic? It just means the person you're buying the items for is the materialistic one rather than the one doing the buying. So instead of the 80's making yourself materalistic, we're just making others materalistic. If those others receiving the gifts weren't materialistic, why would those items make them happy? Perhaps it's just the thought that counts? - N
