FoodNeverComes is one of a growing number of fake online shopping sites where users can place a pretend food order. (CBC)
Rhia Catapano, an assistant professor at the University of Toronto who studies consumer behaviour and psychology, says online shopping simulators can activate “the same parts of our brain that doing the actual activity would.”
That's particularly appealing for budget-conscious young people.
“Like playing a video game or dreaming about a vacation that you're never actually going to take, we can imagine a thing,” she said. “In some way, it gives us some of the same psychological benefits.”
The sudden popularity of these sites, says Catapano, shows just how deeply consumerism has become integrated into our everyday lives, with people willing to spend time and effort browsing and “shopping” even when they know nothing will ever arrive.
But she sees a glimmer of resistance, too.
Some people, she says, are realizing through these sites that their shopping habits aren’t serving them — and are looking for ways to consume less and make more intentional choices.
“They recognize that what they're doing is not good for them, so they're trying to make changes.”
One thing that works just as well is paying bills.
Like, always use auto pay, but when you want to spend, go pay a bill early. This is especially useful if you're using a credit card for points. Whenever you feel consumerery, whip out the app, and pay the bill to zero. You get the same dopamine hit as a purchase making the payment, but then you get a bigger one seeing it (will) go to zero.
If you ever go to look and it's zero, instead of the dopamine from paying, you get one from seeing $0.00 on your credit card bill.
Or just video games like animal crossing, I've always been convinced people just like existing in an economy that might not be "fair" but at least has a path towards eventually success. Even if you're shit at it (to my understanding) you just accumulate resources slower, but eventually you get there.
Decades ago when I was in my 20s, I saw so many of my peers get buried in CC debt. I avoided CCs for quite awhile, but eventually realized I needed to know how to use them responsibly.
When I was in my 20s there was no app to pay a CC, but I accomplished the same thing by mailing in a payment the same day as I made the purchase, and did that for every purchase. This made that mental connection for me that spending on CC means immediate consumption from my bank account, and that if I didn't have the amount of money to pay for the purchase from my CC, I didn't allow myself to buy it.
With the exception of a few months when a major repair bill hit and I had to shoulder it on debt, this allowed me to never get into CC debt. I'm still using CCs heavily decades later, but always paying off the statement balance 100% ever month and never paying interest. I credit my behavior when I was younger to accomplishing this.