With the advent of new technology and innovation, a great number of gadgets and creative products are incessantly manufactured. Likewise, many people in the modern society tend to approach to materialism; there is a continuous increase of new consumers who seem to become market victims like me. It would be undeniable that today’s products lead to both positive and negative effects on humans, creatures as well as environment, and the degree of effects relies on how suitably consumers uses. The vivid example is a smart phone or a tablet. To me, it is really helpful for my life in various aspects—education, entertainment, communication and the like; on the contrary, someone may use their phones too much to play games or chat with both old and new friends, and thus it possibly causes disadvantages their health and life. So, we should think carefully before buying anything and consume goods properly and usefully.
Indeed, sometimes I am likely to buy products, especially new gadgets, without any necessity—just for the reason that I like them and want to possess. Recently, I have bought a Fitbit surge watch, wearable device which can track one’s fitness levels, to wear instead of my old watches just because of my personal demand and interest in new technology, though the price this watch is almost as high as that of an AEP course. Perhaps, my desire has been aroused by the well-created strategic marketing of Fitbit company via many kinds of media.
According to
“Do you really need to take 10,000 steps a day to keep fit?” (2015), many fitness-tracker companies including Fitbit promote a default goal of 10,000 steps a day in their products to increase sale volumes. The main functions of such devices superior to regular watches will help track calories burned, distance travelled, heart rates, sleep periods and so forth. Of those functions, the default goal of walking is set 10,000 steps a day, but this goal can be customized. It can be noted that the origin of this magic number is believed that it is the concept of 10,000 steps in the run-up to the 1964 Tokyo Olympics. However, since the users need to wear this tracker on their wrists, some experts view that the record of motion in users’ leg in such devices would not be enough accurate for the reason that some steps of 10,000 steps may include other motions of users such as bending hand. Actually, even though we do not have this kind of watch, we can still reach 10,000 steps a day by walking routinely around 5 miles a day.
Now, I have been wearing it since I bought. Yet, I am not sure if it is worth buying. Whether this is due to my passion in technology and innovation or just I am not a smart consumer who has become a market victim is a question that I should think. Obviously, there are a lot of ads, campaigns, events, free gifts, trial products, promotions, and sponsorship from companies to attract as many customers as possible. Apart from me, I believe most people would be convinced to buy anything despite no real necessity. Accordingly, it should consider and find out the ways that can help us to avoid strategic marketing and be smart consumers in order to save our money and reduce the consumption of useless products.
_______________________________________
My question is:
How could we be smart consumers?
Do you really need to take 10,000 steps a day to keep fit? (2015, June 15).
BBC News. Retrieved from
http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-33154510
As i read, I was reminded of Na's post and the comments there. Sometimes we have to make mistakes to learn, including about ourselves.
ReplyDeleteI've sometimes bought things for the best of reasons, thinking that they would bring about some wondrous change in my life: I would get fitter if I had that spiffy gym outfit (never wore it even once!), I would write more if only I had that particular pen (I did use it, but no more than the cheap ones I use now), and so on.
Having made lots of such mistakes, I think I'm less inclined to do those sorts of things today. On the other hand, I am fairly hanging out for the not yet announced MS Surface Pro 4, which I'm sure will greatly increase my productivity and allow me to swap out my current notebook and one tablet into that single device that will finally make my life complete. (Now I'm reminded of the original version of the main character in Fight Club - a great book and a great film. Have you read / seen it? One of Brad Pitt's best roles.)
MS is having a special event tomorrow at which they are expected to announce the new Surface Pro. But how long will I have to wait to get my hands on one in Thailand? How long must I use the old notebook and tablets I've got now? It's all too depressing. But I've got some tasty chicken to go with my coffee this morning. That's cheering.
I was also reminded of Poy's post on most impressing travel spots.
DeleteYour viewpoint seems to be quite true and sounds similar to the saying “No pain, no gain”. Learning from your mistakes and experiences could be your excellent teachers.
DeleteBy the way, I’ve never watched Fight club before. But, after reading roughly about it from your link attached (Wikipedia), I would try if I have enough free time because it would give me new aspects and ideas about spending life that focuses on earning money and buying stuff to meet the demand, society of shopping and so on.
Speaking of MS Surface Pro, I planned to buy Surface pro 3 as well. If a tomorrow’s event is to announce the new version (Pro 4) as you mentioned, I will changed my plan again to buy new version. Yet, this time I will try to think very and very prudently whether it is worth buying and really necessary for my life. I would not like to pay very much to buy something and leave it in my room.
The notebook I have now, which is pretty good, is because I couldn't buy the Surface Pro 3 last year. I waited until it was released in Thailand, saw the advertisements for it, went into IT City to buy one, and ... they only had a few display models and were taking orders to deliver months later. I went next door and bought the Yoga Pro2, with which I've been very happy. But I'm expecting that with the new Windows 10 and other upgrades that it might be worthwhile getting a Surface Pro 4 in ... some time in the future.
DeleteThis will make a friend's young son very happy. If I decide that the Surface Pro 4 can replace a tablet as well as my notebook, it will make two of his sons very happy.
Twenty-four or less until we at least know what Microsoft is offering the consumers eager to put money into their pockets.
Very distracting. I'm watching the live updates on the MS event now. And I rather like the new Surface book that they've announced - but when will it be available in Thailand?
DeleteIn the meantime, I've also just opened your provisional thesis statements. I'm not very good at multi-tasking, so I'll have to leave the MS updates for a bit.
Haha, it sounds exciting to see officially Surface Pro 4. I hope it will be available in Thailand soon.
DeleteAnd thank you for reviewing my provisional thesis statement.
Enjoy your watching :- )
Before we use our money for something, we have to think that, for me, at least two reasons. One, is it necessary? Second, if I have it, will I get enough use out of it. If I cannot answer these two questions, I would not buy it.
ReplyDeleteI would not buy anything just because other people have it. You cannot buy everything you wish. Buying everything because of your desire, your house will be full of junk.
I like Na's comment. When I realized a couple of years ago that my home was full of junk, stuff I had bought and never used, it really helped me to make some changes in my habits.
DeleteAnd over the last couple of years, I gotten rid of a lot of the clutter: I've given away about 1,000 books, some furniture, old appliances and other stuff that was perfectly good, but totally useless to me. In fact, it was worse than useless because it cluttered up my home, which is much, much nicer now that it has a lot less stuff in it.
And that has made me more conscious of buying new things - I think my new attitude of being anti-clutter has also helped me to stop buying things.
I also liked giving my useless things to people for whom they are very useful. I like the idea of someone else, who might not otherwise have had those things, now getting some value out of them. It was a win-win course of action for all of us.
DeleteThank you very much P’Na for your good recommendation.
DeleteThose two questions are good ideas for us to ask ourselves before buying anything.
We need to think carefully and do not follow all of new social trends or others too much because perhaps, they do not always matter and can waste our money as well as make our house full of useless things.
At the same time, any desires to buy stuffs we may make us feel unhappy. The good way to lead us to have true happiness is to be pleased with what we have. Besides that, our money could be saved.
Though this is one of the very good solutions, sometimes it may be difficult to restrain ourselves from outside powerful incentives, especially very attractive products in which the companies use effectively strategic marketing to promote.
Thank you Peter again for sharing the additional comments
DeleteI couldn’t agree more with you about this idea to donate some of our useless belongings to whom they are very valuable.
Life doesn't need anything too much just be content with the things you have.
DeleteHow many steps today?
ReplyDeleteI started counting mine when I on the way home, and got to 400 from just past Patpong Post office soi to my front door. If I remember, I'll try to do a full count from my home to AUA tomorrow morning. But I'm not keen enough to rush out and buy a device to count steps for me - think with my daily walking around, and jumping around in class, I probably get a reasonable amount of exercise.
And it's quite OK to write two or three short comments responding to different elements of a blog discussion.
DeleteToday at 21:08, I’ve got 8551 steps which is equivalent to 6.07 kms.
DeleteIf you want to try to count your steps and distance, I think there would be some applications (in both android and ios) which provide you a basic function to track your fitness like that. Actually, not only do I like the function to count my steps, but I am also keen on other useful functions of my latest watch like tracking calories burned, heart rates, sleep periods and so forth.
My guess was that my home was probably about 2 - 3,000 steps from AUA.
DeleteI wasn't even close!
When I did a decent count this morning, it turns out to be only about 1,000 steps! I'm not getting quite as much exercise as I thought.
I also thought this was a useful reminder that whenever we make a claim about the world, it needs to be supported with solid evidence - guesses, however confident we might be, are pretty are often very wrong. I'm reminded of this when I hear people claim things like: "Xxxx is the most hated person in the country!" or "Everyone loves Yyyyy." These sorts of wild claims might be right, but absent the solid supporting evidence of reliable polls of public opinion, they are largely worthless, and there is certainly no reason to have much faith in them.
I used to count the steps by a step count machine about year 2005, which was a campaign provided by Thai Health Promotion Foundation. As they were a target I should get, I also shook it instead some days lol; however, any day that I had free time, I jumped to get the score. (For me, it's a good way to remind that we should exercise.)
ReplyDeleteActually, your watch, I'm not sure that is it has any thing special or not because I can get only a machine from Daiso, just only 60 THB. By the way, the watch is more convenience (I won't mention to the accuracy of it), if you use it valuable as a watch with the extra function, that would be great!
Me too. I'm also a market victim but not much. The best effect way to avoid product marketing is do not buy at first sight. For me, I will leave it to decide that I really need the stuff or hoe necessary of it. If I take time without the convey from seller, I will realize my demand. Moreover, the note is really useful. I use an application on a smart phone to note what I want to get before going to the store and also income and payment list with detail.
Another is bank account which I have more than one. I will leave not much money which I can spend in one and the others (without any support card) are for my future or an emergency case.
Overall, control myself is the best way to be a smart consumer but not a good customer lol.
Thank you Poy for sharing your experiences and giving me useful suggestions.
DeleteTo me, controlling myself would be a very good way to be a smart consumer; however, it is not easy sometimes to restrain myself from products appealing to me very much.
Actually, I’ve got the pedometer (step-counting machine) bought from Daiso too. But now it has lost.
Normally, I am really keen on gadget and technology. Thus, besides step-counting functions, I bought my latest smart watch because of its several functions such as tracking calories burned, heart rates, sleep periods, calling and messaging notification, GPS, Bluetooth, exercise tracking and so forth.
What an amazing watch! For now I seems to understand why it can attract you.
DeleteThat's very good question to ask for all of us (people) nowadays, I like your question, because it reminded me to think about myself, sometimes it seems that today i'm a kind of big spender even I wasn't persuaded to buy the luxury brand-named products. It seems like when I grow up, I have more things which I desire such as travelling to many countries to buy anything that I want or to eat anything that I prefer to. Nevertheless, it is truly necessary for me to do like that and then I will be happy? The answer is no.
ReplyDeleteI've ever tried to possess something which I desired to such as Iphone6, but when I've already got it, it made me feel mad on it in a while and then I got used to it and had other new things to buy. It's not the good behavior, if we used to do the same thing, it's definitely to say that we'll wish for the bigger or more expensive things.
One thing that keeps reminding me to be not a market victim is about investment. For example, if I have a revenue around 10,000 per month, 30% of this money I'll deposit as the fixed fund in the bank before spending anything, others might be for family, education, or the things which I prioritize to.
This solution helps me many times before deciding to buy the costly products.
It sound like satisfaction in ourselves—happy in what we have—is the good point of view that we should realize.
DeleteYour idea is quite interesting. Money management can be one of the way to help us avoid spending money lavishly. I hope that this method would limit my money to buy useless and unnecessary things.
Thank you very much for good ideas and comments
Well, it is understandable that when people see something too often, they are likely to be affected that why i think they tend to buy products ingrained in their mind on TV.
ReplyDeleteTo answer Feem's question, I recommend that you should carefully consider before spending your money on something. I totally agree with P'Na comment that whether it is necessary and also worthwhile or not to spend your money on. And for me, I always search for other people's review of what i want to buy on the internet (I always use Pantip website to see other comments). if some people just say this goods is not okay, I will think about it again. Moreover, before i make a decision, I always check the quality of the goods (no crack, dirt or whatever) and find the cheapest price by looking around many shops and brands as well.
I’d go along with that most ads on TV have influenced on the customer’s behaviors very much.
DeleteIndeed, I usually review the product that I expected to buy as well in the similar way of you (Pantip website and Youtube review). Still, the more I review and if I also find products very good, the more I want to buy. So, this approach seems to be a double-edged sword for me.