Owning stuff will not make us happy

Have we reached "peak stuff", asks Shelina Janmohamed?

A shopper moves through an Ikea store in Abu Dhabi. Is our love affair with consumption coming to an end?

All it took for a 1950s housewife to feel happy was a shiny new washing machine and a fridge. She was part of a consumer generation where things could change your life. For women, it liberated them from household drudgery and was part of the wider revolution getting women out of homes and into the public space.

During the decades that followed, consumption became a badge of identity for everyone, exhibiting who we were, our tastes, our point of view and the kind of social circles we were part of. We believed stuff would both solve our problems and make us happy.

Those great big philosophical questions that have been raised over the course of human history – about happiness and fulfilment – appeared to have been answered.

But reality has not borne this out. Consumers, particularly Millennials, are shifting from product-orientated consumption towards an experience economy. IKEA’s head of sustainability declared this year that we have hit “peak stuff’’ and that consumption of things such as home furnishings had maxed out.

It ties in with wider trends of consumers talking about how they have reduced – or in some cases totally banished – new product purchases. Or how they focus on buying experiences rather than things.

Marie Kondo's guide The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up is a New York Times bestseller, and has generated a huge following. She advocates clearing out almost all your things and only keeping those things that "spark joy".

Millennials are more willing to pay for experiences that enhance their lives (as well as their Instagram feeds) rather than buy products. As parents, they buy memories for their children, not things. They are willing to pay a premium for organic and fair-trade items, rejecting luxury in favour of sustainability.

Psychological studies indicate that people are happier when they spend their money on living rather than having.

The religious among us might argue that this is what they’ve been saying all along; that seeking fulfilment in things or even social media is an empty search.

The disillusionment with stuff is most dramatically demonstrated with the new wave of teens who have been labelled "Generation K", aged 14 to 21. The K stands for Katniss Everdeen, the heroine of The Hunger Games. Like Katniss, they feel the world they inhabit is one of perpetual struggle – unequal and harsh.

Only 6 per cent of them trust big corporations to do the right thing, as opposed to 60 per cent of adults. They describe corporations as “exploitative, selfish, arrogant, greedy, cheating and untrustworthy”.

Of course, these are the same young people who continue to buy things with their parents’ money.

After a long experiment with consumption, we find ourselves on the cusp of change: eco-friendliness and sustainability are now mainstream concepts. Those selling things are under increasing scrutiny for their methods across the supply chain from sourcing through to marketing. And we are moving towards an experience economy and assessing our levels of happiness is once again on our radars. Human beings will always be consumers, but to misquote Star Trek, there will be consumption, but not as we know it.

Shelina Zahra Janmohamed is the author of Love in a Headscarf and blogs at www. spirit21.co.uk