Shopping is now one of the most popular forms of leisure activity in many countries for young adults. Why is this? Do you think this is a positive or a negative development?

9 out of 10 young adult Thai state that shopping is their main hobby. Shopping as a hobby is a very modern phenomenon unseen before. In the past shopping was only limited to life necessities like food or tools but today we can buy a lot more items than just life necessities with the

media

pressure to make us keep buying the latest trend.

This

in my opinion could bring harm to our society. The reason why shopping become a big part of modern adolescents' main activity could be because of increasing spending power brought about by economic prosperity and technological advancements in the past decade. In the past before the rise of the middle class,

people

earned very little money they needed to conserve most of their salary to be able to afford very basic needs like food or medicine, unlike today where young adults can work part-time jobs and still be able to afford luxury item like the smartphone of

jewelry

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jewellery

show examples

.

Not to mention

that with an advance in, technology lots of items

such

as electronic devices or an automobile that used to be very expensive in the past is now very affordable thank to advancement in manufacturing and globalization shipping.

Furthermore

, It is

also

very easy to shop for anything

this

day with the rise of internet shopping whose main target is young adults with disposable income. Despite shopping being easier and cheaper than in the past there arose new problems associated with it

such

as mental health impacts from

media

pressure and environmental concerns from overconsumption. Ever since the rise of social

media

in the middle of years 2010, many

people

especially young folk put more emphasis on what other

people

think of them than what they think of themselves

thus

enabling the

media

and advertisement company to influence their shopping habits. With constant advertising and social pressure, many big companies take advantage of the need to always be in the current trend of young consumers and manipulate them into buying things they don't need or already have.

This

creates a new problem of overconsumption

that is

a drain on a person's mental health and the world's limited resources. For, example

people

rush to buy a new smartphone

that is

nearly identical to its

last

year's model, some even go into debt just so they can show off their new phone

while

throwing away their old phone that still perfectly functions.

To conclude

, Shopping is a great way to spend time either alone or with a group of friends with a variety of items to choose from but if one is not careful and take control of our spending habits it could lead us down a downward spiral situation where we only buy to satisfy the need of other

instead

of our own.