The modern college student in the U.S. can now buy almost anything they want without stepping off campus. Students can have food delivered to their doorstep, guaranteed clean water across campus and never have to worry about access to on-demand electricity and WiFi. Having access to bare necessities is a privilege, however, the rise of accessible goods and services has created unsustainable societal habits. People are buying too much of what they objectively do not need.

Overconsumption is the norm for students. Every semester, campus is filled with students wearing the newest fast-fashion trend, and dorm rooms are filled with excessive decorations. These are only a couple of the most blatant examples of unnecessary consumption.

Today’s fastest-growing companies rely on this type of consumer behavior. The original necessary function of shopping has quickly turned into a social activity based on overconsumption. Walking into stores consists of shoppers walking in with very little idea of what to buy and walking out with products that they “didn’t know they needed.” It encourages people to listen to their compulsions, not their needs. Shopping without considering a purchase’s consequences reflects an integral habit of the American over-consumer.

Advertising encourages this unconscious form of consumption. Students are barraged with advertising and social media influence making massive “hauls” of clothing, increased portion sizes found in most American meals, and daily coffee runs seem normal. Practices such as these revolve around the act of shopping without considering the consequences which aids in the promotion of overconsumption. In addition, buying excessive amounts of anything leads to waste and begs us to ask the question if the environment can handle any of this.

The Western consumer can not continue this practice of impulse glorification. To conceptualize this reality, experts have developed overshoot days where a nation’s sustainability is considered in terms of resource consumption.

This year, the U.S. already hit that overshoot day on March 13, 2022, meaning that we’ve already used more resources this calendar year than we’ll be able to regenerate in 2022. American society alone needs to significantly reduce consumption to ensure ecological sustainability. Reducing consumption is necessary if we want to avert the catastrophic effects of climate change and the environmental degradation that poses threats to our health as a society.

To survive, humans do not need material possessions beyond food, water, shelter and the occasional sentimental item or hobby. Aspects of our lives do not require ornate consumption — for example, many of the dorm “essentials” marketed to students are not necessary.

Making the decisions of what someone needs falls on the individual to reconsider what they value in their materials. Arguably, students don’t need more than two sets of kitchenware, nor do they need new school supplies every semester. For myself, I choose to cut back on my clothing consumption to durable staples such as my single pair of Converse shoes. I am functional and happy without ten shades of the same pieces of clothing.

Deciding what is necessary to an individual’s life is one the individual has to make themself. An act of reducing your environmental footprint and the demand for an unsustainable economy brings back self-agency in deeming what is valuable, not what society or advertising decides is valuable.

Students should be more cognizant of the difference between necessity versus nonessentials, a step toward reducing overconsumption and increasing societal sustainability.

Harrison Vogt is a junior environment sustainability policy and communication and rhetorical studies dual major. His column appears biweekly. He can be reached at hevogt@syr.edu. He can be followed on Twitter at @VogtHarrison.

Published on April 20, 2022 at 12:10 am