Why is society becoming more and more materialistic and shallow?

[helena]

Have people forgotten what life is about? I think it's tragic.

[William]

It's called "realistic."

[BlazingDad]

I think it's because people can't/ are unable to find satisfaction in their current lives. People no longer have strong friends/family ties because of the social structure in the US, so they look to material goods to compensate.

[buttfacemonkey]

I've noticed it as well. see blame the generation everyone is obtaining smart phones from their parents and the only way to communicate, for them, is via text and Facebook making their whole live revolve around the phone. take it away and they get board

[Alex]

People have become more and more anti social, due to social networking and messaging. With more advanced and brilliant technologies, comes more demand, and more obsession.

For example if 1 million buy the iPhone 5, the population will also want one. This is due to influence. People want what everyone else has. This goes to the point where people will buy a new phone rather than that weeks shopping. Advertising really does also play a big part. Especially on TV, celebrities are portrayed to be huge fans of a product, and consumers think, 'if X enjoys and has it, I must have it'. It's a case that can't be solved. As long as we produce more technologically advanced products, people will stay materialistic.

[Fiona]

I think the reason the world is becoming shallow is because of social media. I know this is always said to be the culprit of basically every bad thing that has been happening in society ever since it became popular. But when you think about it, what do people do on facebook? They like photos of people they think are attractive, like pages of models and handsome actors, write statuses to gain popularity. And, above all, create this whole profile of their life, and make it seem so wonderful, full of edited pictures and copying the current cool "slang" (you seen the "#YOLO" thing? That's an example).

I'm not sure about you, but I'm still in high school. You would not believe the amount of people who I see in the bus taking photos of themselves several times throughout the trip on their smartphones, sending them to people who they think would care about them pulling random faces in their uniform.

And with all the photoshopping of everything and everyone, everyone has this obsession with being perfect, like all the hollywood actors/actresses look in the movies. I think it affects all of us (and I must not be a hypocrite, as I am one of these people too). It's all about the presentation of everything and how great one's life supposedly is, hence giving one a sense of value. It's really sad

Materialistic. Yes, we are that now. Unlike back in the day, as my parents say, nothing is made to last. There's a new version of everything coming out constantly, and to feed this desire to make everyone around us and even ourselves, we feel the need to get the latest of it all.

I agree it's sad. But, who knows, perhaps there will be a bounce back. Maybe my generation will realise how bad an impact social networking has had on them, and won't let their children have Facebook and new gadgets and whatnot to prevent this from happening to them. We just don't know...

[Candy]

Asks a person who has sacrificed all his values and moral principles to be with the most shallow, spiritually empty and more vane person in the world. Probably because people like you enable psychopaths and allow them to control you and use you. You are as much part of the problem as they are.

[Anne Hathaway]

There's 2 options:
1) Society will keep getting worse and worse
2) One day everybody will realize how f***** up we've become and we'll change