---
title: "Consumerism"
description: "How the attention machine became a shopping machine — and what that costs."
url: https://attentionmachine.org/en/symptoms/consumerism/
lang: en
updated: 2026-10-25
license: "CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/)"
---

# Consumerism

Consumerism was always with us. The attention machine made it frictionless, continuous, and personalised.

## The infrastructure came first

The commercial surveillance advertising model was established before social media existed. DoubleClick (1996)[^src-doubleclick-inc-2001] began tracking users across websites with cookies[^src-kristol-2001]. Google AdWords launched in October 2000[^src-google-2000], and from February 2002[^src-google-2002] it sold those ads by auction, priced per click[^src-edelman-2007] — establishing pay-per-attention as the default revenue model for the commercial internet. The machinery for surveillance-based consumerism was built as commercial infrastructure — then social media platforms scaled it to three billion people[^src-meta-platforms-2026].

## How social media became a shopping machine

Facebook's advertising system, launched in 2007[^src-facebook-2007], allowed advertisers to target users by age, location, and interests drawn from their profiles. That summer the iPhone had gone on sale[^src-apple-2007], sold by Apple as “the Internet in your pocket”. By 2013–2015, researchers had shown[^src-kosinski-2013] that Facebook likes alone could predict a person's personality, politics and sexual orientation — and, for personality, more accurately than their friends could[^src-youyou-2015]. The shift from demographic to psychographic targeting was significant: instead of "women aged 25–34," advertisers could target "women aged 25–34 who have recently searched for running shoes and whose social network suggests they are competitive." The product is not demographics. It is individual prediction.

> **Psychographic targeting**
>
> Targeting people by inferred psychological traits — personality, values, anxieties — rather than by demographics like age or location. A controlled study reaching over 3.5 million people found that ads matched to a person's personality produced up to 40% more clicks and up to 50% more purchases than unmatched ads. The same technique that sells running shoes can sell a political message.
>
> **Sources**
>
> - Matz, Kosinski, Nave & Stillwell (2017), [_Psychological targeting as an effective approach to digital mass persuasion_](https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1710966114), PNAS 114(48).

In 2012 Facebook bought Instagram[^src-facebook-2012], an app built for sharing photographs from a phone. The influencer economy emerged from this infrastructure. Influencers do not simply promote products — they provide social proof. The social validation that makes likes and followers feel meaningful also makes a purchase by someone you follow feel different from seeing an advertisement. The purchase is socially endorsed rather than commercially pushed. The distinction is manufactured but effective.

> **Social proof**
>
> The tendency to treat other people's behaviour as evidence of the right thing to do — especially under uncertainty, and especially when those people are similar to us. An influencer converts a commercial message into apparent peer behaviour, which the brain weighs far more heavily than an ad. The endorsement does the persuading; the product is almost incidental.
>
> **Sources**
>
> - Cialdini, R. (1984), _Influence: How and Why People Agree to Things_, William Morrow.

In-app shopping — Instagram and Facebook from 2019 and 2020[^src-instagram-2019] — collapsed the distance between content and purchase to zero. You see, you want, you buy — without leaving the platform. The friction that once provided a pause for consideration is deliberately removed.

## The environmental dimension

Fast fashion — the sector the influencer-to-purchase pipeline serves most directly — carries a large environmental cost in emissions, water and textile waste. (Headline figures such as "10 per cent of global carbon emissions" and textile dyeing as "the second largest polluter of water", given by the UN Environment Programme[^src-environment-programme-2018] in 2018, have since been challenged as poorly sourced[^src-wicker-2020], and the same UNEP page now gives 2 to 8 per cent, so we do not lean on them; the direction is not in doubt, the exact numbers are.) Platforms optimised for engagement amplify content that promotes a purchase, including purchases sold as sustainable; the one message no advertiser pays to spread, buying less, has no budget behind it.

The connection between attention machine economics and environmental harm is structural, not incidental. A system that profits from desire created and satisfied as quickly as possible has no mechanism to account for what the manufacturing and disposal of those desires costs.

## What the research shows

Sharif and Khanekharab's 2017 survey of 501 young adults[^src-sharif-2017] found associations between heavy social media use, compulsive buying and higher levels of materialism. The mechanism is social comparison: seeing others' possessions, lifestyles, and consumption creates reference points that make existing possessions feel inadequate. This mechanism was present before social media — magazines and television served the same function — but the personalisation, volume, and seamlessness of the feed give it a reach and a constancy no magazine had. How much that adds to the effect is still being measured.

> **Social comparison**
>
> Festinger's finding that people evaluate themselves by comparing against others, and in the absence of objective standards, comparison is what we reach for. A feed is an endless stream of upward comparisons — others' curated best moments — against your own ordinary, un-curated life. The reference point ratchets upward; satisfaction with what you have falls.
>
> **Sources**
>
> - Festinger, L. (1954), [_A theory of social comparison processes_](https://doi.org/10.1177/001872675400700202), Human Relations 7(2).

**How we know — what 'associations' means here, and what it doesn't**

The consumption findings[^src-sharif-2017] — links between heavier social media use, materialism and compulsive buying — are largely _correlational_. They show the variables move together; they do not on their own prove the feed causes the materialism rather than, say, materialistic people using the feed more. The social-comparison mechanism (Festinger[^src-festinger-1954]) and the personalised-targeting evidence (Matz et al.[^src-matz-2017]) make a causal story plausible, but the consumption literature specifically is weaker on causation than, for example, the experimental targeting work.

**What is solid.** That psychographic targeting changes purchasing behaviour has field evidence behind it, not just correlation: experiments that reached over 3.5 million people[^src-matz-2017]. Their design did not assign at random who saw which ad, and other researchers argue[^src-eckles-2018] that this leaves open how much of the difference the targeting itself caused; the authors reply that the platform's ad delivery is highly unlikely to explain the effects. That comparing yourself with people who seem better off tends to leave you feeling worse is well established: a meta-analysis of more than sixty years of research[^src-gerber-2018] found that people prefer upward comparisons even though "the most likely result is self-deflating contrast". What's less settled is the size of the feed's specific contribution on top of the magazines-and-television baseline that preceded it.

## Sources

[^src-zuboff-2019]: Zuboff, S. (2019), _The Age of Surveillance Capitalism_, PublicAffairs.

[^src-eckles-2018]: Eckles, D., Gordon, B.R. & Johnson, G.A. (2018), [_Field studies of psychologically targeted ads face threats to internal validity_](https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1805363115), PNAS 115(23), E5254–E5255 — a letter on Matz et al. (2017), answered in the same issue by the authors’ [_Reply to Eckles et al._](https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1806854115)

[^src-matz-2017]: Matz, Kosinski, Nave & Stillwell (2017), [_Psychological targeting as an effective approach to digital mass persuasion_](https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1710966114), PNAS 114(48).

[^src-cialdini-1984]: Cialdini, R. (1984), _Influence: How and Why People Agree to Things_, William Morrow.

[^src-festinger-1954]: Festinger, L. (1954), [_A theory of social comparison processes_](https://doi.org/10.1177/001872675400700202), Human Relations 7(2).

[^src-sharif-2017]: Sharif, S.P. & Khanekharab, J. (2017), [_Identity Confusion and Materialism Mediate the Relationship Between Excessive Social Network Site Usage and Online Compulsive Buying_](https://doi.org/10.1089/cyber.2017.0162), Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking 20(8).

[^src-iccl]: [ICCL](https://www.iccl.ie/news/iccl-report-on-the-scale-of-real-time-bidding-data-broadcasts-in-the-u-s-and-europe/) — RTB research.

[^src-environment-programme-2018]: [UN Environment Programme, _Putting the brakes on fast fashion_](https://www.unep.org/news-and-stories/story/putting-brakes-fast-fashion) (2018) — published 12 November 2018 with 10 per cent of global carbon emissions; the same page now gives 2 to 8 per cent.

[^src-wicker-2020]: Wicker, A. (2020), [_Fashion has a misinformation problem. That's bad for the environment_](https://www.vox.com/the-goods/2020/1/27/21080107/fashion-environment-facts-statistics-impact), Vox — traces the 10% and "second most polluting" figures.

[^src-doubleclick-inc-2001]: DoubleClick Inc. (13 March 2001), [_Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2000_](https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1049480/000095011701000490/0000950117-01-000490-0001.txt), US Securities and Exchange Commission — incorporated 23 January 1996; "Our technology uses cookies for ad targeting".

[^src-kristol-2001]: Kristol, D.M. (2001), [_HTTP Cookies: Standards, Privacy, and Politics_](https://doi.org/10.1145/502152.502153), ACM Transactions on Internet Technology 1(2), 151–198 (open version: [arXiv:cs/0105018](https://arxiv.org/abs/cs/0105018)) — third-party cookies and the advertising networks whose profiles depended on them; DoubleClick’s incorporation in January 1996 (footnote 21).

[^src-google-2000]: Google (23 October 2000), [_Google Launches Self-Service Advertising Program_](https://googlepress.blogspot.com/2000/10/google-launches-self-service.html) — the launch of AdWords.

[^src-google-2002]: Google (20 February 2002), [_Google Introduces New Pricing For Popular Self-Service Online Advertising Program_](https://googlepress.blogspot.com/2002/02/google-introduces-new-pricing-for.html) — AdWords Select: cost-per-click pricing, ads ranked by click-through rate and bid.

[^src-edelman-2007]: Edelman, B., Ostrovsky, M. & Schwarz, M. (2007), [_Internet Advertising and the Generalized Second-Price Auction: Selling Billions of Dollars Worth of Keywords_](https://doi.org/10.1257/aer.97.1.242), American Economic Review 97(1), 242–259 — per-click keyword auctions from Overture (1997) and Google’s AdWords Select (February 2002).

[^src-meta-platforms-2026]: Meta Platforms (29 July 2026), [_Meta Reports Second Quarter 2026 Results_](https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1326801/000162828026050596/meta-06302026xexhibit991.htm) — the company's own count: “DAP was 3.60 billion on average for June 2026” (Family daily active people), as filed with the US Securities and Exchange Commission.

[^src-facebook-2007]: Facebook (6 November 2007), [_Facebook Unveils Facebook Ads_](https://about.fb.com/news/2007/11/facebook-unveils-facebook-ads/); the targeting criteria as reported by Walsh, M. (7 November 2007), [_Facebook Unveils New Face: Social Ad Program_](https://www.mediapost.com/publications/article/70574/facebook-unveils-new-face-social-ad-program.html), MediaPost — country, age, gender, political views, movies, relationship status.

[^src-apple-2007]: Apple (28 June 2007), [_iPhone Premieres This Friday Night at Apple Retail Stores_](https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2007/06/28iPhone-Premieres-This-Friday-Night-at-Apple-Retail-Stores/) — on sale in the US from 29 June 2007; “a revolutionary mobile phone, a widescreen iPod, and the Internet in your pocket”.

[^src-facebook-2012]: Facebook (9 April 2012), [_Facebook to Acquire Instagram_](https://about.fb.com/news/2012/04/facebook-to-acquire-instagram/) — “a fun, popular photo-sharing app for mobile devices”; and Facebook, Inc. (2012), [_Form 10-Q for the quarter ended September 30, 2012_](https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1326801/000132680112000006/fb-9302012x10q.htm), Note 2 — the acquisition completed later in 2012.

[^src-kosinski-2013]: Kosinski, M., Stillwell, D. & Graepel, T. (2013), [_Private traits and attributes are predictable from digital records of human behavior_](https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1218772110), PNAS 110(15).

[^src-youyou-2015]: Youyou, W., Kosinski, M. & Stillwell, D. (2015), [_Computer-based personality judgments are more accurate than those made by humans_](https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1418680112), PNAS 112(4).

[^src-instagram-2019]: Instagram (19 March 2019), [_Introducing Checkout on Instagram_](https://about.instagram.com/blog/announcements/introducing-instagram-checkout); Facebook (19 May 2020), [_Introducing Facebook Shops_](https://about.fb.com/news/2020/05/introducing-facebook-shops/) — buying "without leaving the app".

[^src-gerber-2018]: Gerber, J.P., Wheeler, L. & Suls, J. (2018), [_A social comparison theory meta-analysis 60+ years on_](https://doi.org/10.1037/bul0000127), Psychological Bulletin 144(2), 177–197.

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