End of the High Street hunter-gatherer?

By Julian Joyce
BBC News

Buy Nothing Day - an annual moratorium on shopping - has made little impression over the years. But campaigners marking this year's day of inaction, on Saturday, sense the tide is starting to turn.

The mere thought is almost enough to bring Maryann Poole out in a cold sweat - a day dedicated to not shopping.

Maryann, a freelance journalist from west London, says she "genuinely enjoys" shopping.

"I admire things. I like looking at the difference between products. I like going into shops and choosing things. Having a good long talk with the shop assistant - so long as they know their stuff.

"And then getting home and taking whatever it is out of the nice packaging,"

It's "a lot to do with who I am - the whole process gives me real pleasure".

Maryann is a retailer's dream. But she is also the worst nightmare of the Buy Nothing Day campaign, dedicated as it is to curbing consumerism.

She is a walking embodiment of the fact that huge numbers of people have come to enjoy shopping for its own sake. They get a thrill not for the difference that the products can make to their lives - but out of the process itself.

There is no getting away from the fact we live in a world of diminishing resources and increasing waste Pat Thomas, the Ecologist

This "shopping as sport" phenomenon has, some say, helped to drive a wave of consumerism unprecedented in history. Never before has the world spent so much, consumed so much, and thrown so much away.

And with the biggest shopping bonanza of them all, Christmas, just a month off, the shops will be thronging with people.

Yet campaigners behind Buy Nothing Day say its time may have come. Some thinkers are pointing to growing trends towards environmental awareness and old-fashioned thrift. These, they predict, foreshadow the end of consumerism as a national obsession.

Greedy, wasteful?

Among the campaign's most enthusiastic supporters is Pat Thomas, editor of the Ecologist magazine.

For many, shopping is about enjoyment rather than necessity

"There is no getting away from the fact that we now live in a world of diminishing resources and increasing waste," says Ms Thomas. "The answer is always: consume less."

Yet labels such as "greedy" and "wasteful" which anti-shoppers brandish at spendthrifts are increasingly seen as over-simplistic.

Instead, scientific methods are shedding light on the stimuli behind the "shopping thrill". And once we understand that, say scientists, we might be able to harness that knowledge to lead a wiser and less wasteful lifestyle.

Two months ago researcher Dr David Lewis strapped video glasses to his subjects, wired them up to machines that measured their brain patterns, heart rate and skin moisture levels and let them loose in a London store in search of bargains.

He and his team discovered that when his shoppers found a desirable product at a low price, their bodies exhibited real physical signs.

"Chemicals that create feelings of well-being - like serotonin and adrenalin - were being released into the brain," he says. "The brainwaves changed and rising skin moisture levels indicated that people were getting aroused. Their heartbeats also speeded up. Fundamentally what this proved to us was that shopping is above all an 'emotional' process."

Aspiring for ourselves and for our children to have a better quality of life is what we have always striven for Richard Dodd, British Retail Consortium

He is careful to make a distinction between "doing the shopping" - buying necessities like bin-bags and toilet paper - and "going shopping", which he describes as an emotional adventure.

"When we go shopping, we shop according to our emotional state," says Dr Lewis, of The Mind Lab consultancy. "We'll buy things that make us feel good - and it is only after that we construct a narrative to justify our choices.

"In a way, our conscious rationality is like a company's PR department, explaining why certain actions have been taken after the event."

National pastime

The good news for environmentalists is that scientists now believe they can use this knowledge to transform our consumption patterns - even to the extent of making non-consumption "sexy".

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Economist Andrew Oswald from Warwick University has identified a consumer cycle, which he says is moving from strong materialism to a concern for the environment, and wider issues around wellbeing.

"We know that in the industrialised countries there has been no rise in general levels of happiness - as measured in surveys on job satisfaction and figures on mental health - since about 1975," says Mr Oswald.

People in the developed West are beginning to realise that more material goods does not equal more happiness, he says.

"Politicians like Conservative leader David Cameron in the UK and Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger in California have caught on to this trend. The language is now more about happiness and well-being - and there's much less concentration on the language of pure economic growth."

Scientists believe we shop with our emotions - not our brains

It's a controversial theory, and one that's fiercely contested by those with the most to lose - shopkeepers.

"I don't believe this for a moment," says Richard Dodd from the British Retail Consortium. "Our figures show a steady year-on-year growth in consumer spending. Those people [Cameron and Schwarzenegger] are in the privileged position of being able to spend less. Poorer people don't have those choices.

"I think the economy will continue to grow as it has always grown. Aspiring for ourselves and for our children to have a better quality of life is what we have always striven for. That won't change."

But those who believe consumerism is on the wane remain optimistic.

"I predict that it will no longer be seen as smart to have too much bling. And because we buy things on an unconscious level we will invent a narrative to explain our thrift," says Dr Lewis. "It will become just as satisfactory to buy something green - or not to consume at all."

If this is true, then the anti-consumers might be pushing at an open door. And Buy Nothing Day might be a sign of bigger things to come.

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Below is a selection of your comments.

Before you get so high minded, spare a thought for people who work in shops, helping people obtain their requirements, often locally sourced, or craft shops with handmade clothes or poducing crafts. Shops that you remember, shops that are run with a conviction that they are running a useful service in their towns or villages. There are many fewer kinds of shop than there used to be, but still small specialised shops here and there which cannot be bettered for quality and choice, often using eco-friendly methods and materials. Hammering shopping is likely to damage these smaller businesses and leave us with the conglomerates, with no choice, no variety and no pride in making things well.
Sally, Stirling

People will always have differences in the things that excite them and if someone is excited by shopping, so be it. Many people work hard earning a living and would therefore feel justified in spending money on themselves or others from time to time, even if it is for superficial reasons. The best way to make people reduce consumption is to limit the amount they are allowed to spend and I don't believe that is feasible or justified at this point in time.
Chris, Sheffield

Unless I'm out to buy something specifically (and that isn't often since I'm strapped for cash) I HATE shopping. Crowded shops, people wandering along at crawling speed, long queues to pay, disinterested staff... I could go on and on. Sorry, but my life is too full of interesting things to do to waste it plodding round shopping centres.
Helen

Ooops! I'm going to do my Xmas shopping on Saturday...
Kate, Oxford, UK

Richard Dodd says: "Aspiring for ourselves and for our children to have a better quality of life is what we have always striven for..." But quality of life is not just about having stuff, but about social networks and quality environments - the sorts of things that over-consumption is destroying. Make no mistake, the BRC is only interested in profits, not quality of life issues.
Tony P, Worcester

I have always thought that people who get a thrill out of shopping must have a life with really low levels of excitement elsewhere. I'm not suggesting everyone should go bungee jumping but surely you can get more of a thrill away from the High Street.
Mike Rodgers, Exeter

Hallelujah, at last it seems we are waking up to reducing consumption!! Chapter 4 in Agenda 21 from the Rio Earth Summit expressed the necessity for reduction in consumption. It is time for us to stop chasing the 'feel-good' factor and get to grips with the real issues on this beautiful planet of ours.
Dorps, Durham

I am sick to death of having "being green" rammed down my throat everywhere I turn. Climate change is inevitable - look back over the past million years or so. The planet will evolve and survive. It is the human race that may not, but the more I see of it the more I wonder if it is worth saving anyway.
Marilyn Drawwater, Surbiton