“SARAH, did you hear about the launch of iPhone 5C and S? I’ve asked my parents to buy one for me. I am going to throw my old cellphone away. It’s useless now!”

“Yeah I am keeping an eye on every news of new products. How can I miss that. And when I heard that my mum and dad were going to buy the new 5S for themselves, I asked them to buy one for me as well!”

This sort of discussion is now common and not only teenagers but adults too engage in this behaviour. Every one of us is after the latest things whether it is mobile phones, TV, computer, laptop, or handbag. But do we ever think why we have this craving for buying the latest stuff? No, I believe not! And even if we do, we don’t come up with a logical solution. Do we?

If we see this compulsion from a psychological point of view, we can get an idea of the impact of our environment on us. And that is why we have a saying advocating this type of behaviour — “When in Rome, do as the Romans do”.

This perspective can explain how our environment compels us to do various things, how even innocent-looking people commit heinous crimes. And it can also explain the mystery of the compulsion to buy new items.

According to psychologists, as it’s traditionally thought, adolescents do not make careless decisions. But then why are they so inclined towards buying new things? Psychologists assert that no one is immune to the effects that the environment has on us, whether positive or negative. Some of us, however, can resist this pressure for a longer than usual. We’ll later see how.

When we see that our friends are buying the latest fashion gadgets, clothes, accessories et al, we feel a strange kind of pressure on us. It’s the pressure of identifying with the group of people with whom we feel we belong to.

Our decisions are mostly dependent on our environment as we have seen already. No matter what background, country or ethnicity we belong to, we adopt the habits of the people around us.

People often know that most of the features of the new gadgets are of no use to them but still, for the sake of being like their group, they buy the gadgets. Isn’t it so? This is a temptation that we cannot resist, however, as I said earlier some of us have more resistance to this kind of compulsion, and this is because of the fact that these people have a different mindset. Let me tell you, there is one advantage of being humans ... guess what? If we know that some of our habits are doing more harm to us than good, we can change them since we all are born learners. So can’t we develop more resistance to this compulsion? Yes, we can!

Firstly, if we are mentally satisfied and strong willed, we will feel as if we are content with everything around us, with everything we have. We don’t need anything more. Our mind can either fully devastate us, or firmly safeguard us, and you know what, if we can learn to be in command of it, we can protect ourselves. I’ll recommend ‘Psychocybernatics’ for it.

Psychologists are divided between two arguments: one side says “We are instinctually selfish”; the other one says “We are not selfish by birth, we become so”.

Now let’s move on: We often see the argument, “But buying new things will make me happy”. Does it sound familiar? To some extent it seems a right argument but is it really right?

We might be very affluent at a time ... we would have everything, e.g. vehicles, houses, electronics, servants, etc. Would we be happy without love? Can money give us every happiness in the world? I don’t think so and from what I have seen and read in books and movies about happiness bought with money, in the end it turns out that people find that the happiness bought with money is not lasting or worthwhile.

The special moments that we share with people whom we love are the moments that are very precious and cannot be bought with any amount of money.

With everything that we want for ourselves in life, we might seem and be very glad. Although our impulse might say to us that money is everything, my friends, the happiness gained with money lasts for a short time. After that, you need not material happiness but spiritual happiness — the happiness which lasts for years!

In the last, I request you all to consider this question: “What would happen if we didn’t get these unnecessary things? How would this aspect of our life affect our overall personality?” Please do some research and prepare your answers and compare your answers with that of your friends. Sounds fun, doesn’t it?