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PALO
ALTO, Calif. — We may have spent the last few decades
trying to keep up with the Joneses, but we are now busy
keeping up with our online alter egos — and the
Joneses suddenly seem frugal.
The
Internet and related technologies have turned money
virtual, an even less-tangible and further-removed
concept than the plastic of credit cards often blamed
for our reckless out-of-touchness with finances. The
result may be a new and largely unacknowledged
contributor to our economic woes.
The Great
Recession of the last couple of years may also have to
do with our coming of age as full-fledged virtual
creatures, no longer moored in reality and no longer
beholden to old truths and rules, including economic
ones. Online, we take on new character traits that add
up to a complete “e-personality” — a disinhibited
way of behaving and transacting that can be very
different from how we have always operated.
E-personality
traits to be found in our online alter egos include
grandiosity, or the sense that the sky is the limit when
it comes to what we can accomplish and how much we think
we can afford; narcissism, or how we tend to think of
ourselves as the center of the World Wide Web, deserving
of all the pampering money can buy; and impulsivity, or
the urge-driven, click-now-worry-later lifestyle many of
us are falling into online. As a consequence of adopting
these traits, we feel more potent, entitled, and
spontaneous.
These
traits are empowering, which helps blind us to their
consequences. When it comes to online spending, the
effects become less near and concrete. Fueled by
grandiose, narcissistic, and impulsive notions, we find
it easier, online, to feel as special and immune to
consequences as a Marie Antoinette — and to spend
accordingly. Outcomes like default or bankruptcy stop
scaring us because they stop being real.
The
Internet, which helps us create larger-than-life alter
egos, also gives us the illusion that Amazon and eBay
are our shortcut to it. In a 2007 study led by British
psychologist Helga Dittmar, researchers recruited 126
online shoppers. Using a scientifically validated scale
to find the dysfunctional Internet shoppers among them,
they determined that nearly 10 percent met criteria for
compulsive online shopping. The researchers then set out
to understand exactly what prompted the pathological
shoppers’ online sprees.
Was it
the economic benefit made possible through the ease of
price comparisons online? Was it the efficiency and
convenience of not having to go to the store? Or was it
identity gains and the possibility of feeling grander
than one’s old self through buying goods online?
The
results showed that economic benefit and efficiency did
not trigger compulsive online buying — people didn’t
shop compulsively online because it was easier and less
time-consuming than going to the store, or in order to
save money.
By
contrast, identity gains were clear triggers, in that
compulsive shoppers tended to shop online specifically
because they thought it got them closer to an ideal
image that they were chasing: “Individuals appear
motivated by self-improvement and self-repair ... and
moving closer to an identity ideal.”
The
study’s authors advocate that as a society we increase
awareness into the psychological and financial pitfalls
of impulsive online buying through education and
consumer advice and, for some, through psychotherapy.
Psychotherapy
for your e-tail therapy? It wasn’t supposed to turn
out that way. A decade ago, it was thought that the
Internet would actually encourage responsible buying by
avoiding the marketing distractions of traditional
stores, facilitating price and product comparisons, and
freeing us from time pressure. And recent apps such as
ShopSavvy, RedLaser, and Milo have turned bargain
hunting into an exact science.
A good
deal may be easier to track down than ever, but none of
this seems to matter if we are in a virtual bazaar with
an out-of-control alter ego to contend with, and where
the buying transaction is so remote from handing over
cash or even a credit card that it no longer feels like
spending. And so we spend more.
That is
why one has to wonder about the role of what I have
called “virtualism” in the devastating real estate
bubble and ensuing Great Recession. It is worth noting
that four of the top-10 online advertisers in 2007 sold
mortgage services and that countless websites were in
the business of encouraging consumers, including those
with marginal credit histories, to bid on properties
they could not afford.
All of a
sudden, many of us who should have known better became
easy prey to “zip zero zilch nada no down payment
required” pop-ups on websites such as zero
downloan.com. All of a sudden, too many of us were
looking for second homes to “flip,” in a bout of
irrational exuberance that recalls the heady days of
another bubble (and one that was clearly
Internet-mediated).
This,
too, can be seen as a manifestation of grandiose
thinking, one that online life, by making us allergic to
gravity and anything that holds us back, may have helped
facilitate. After all, owning a virtual home is
relatively painless: If you subscribe to Second Life (an
online virtual world developed by Linden Lab and
launched in 2003), all you need to build your dream
house is borrow a few Lindens, the Second Life currency.
Should you default on your loan, the most painful
outcome possible is that your Second Life subscription
might get canceled.
They call
it “real” estate for a reason, yet many of us
approached first, second and vacation homes as though
they were virtual property, castles we built in the sky.
Debt becomes tolerable as money becomes unreal. The
“correction” that has followed continues to be
extremely painful, but only as painful as the buying
binge that preceded it was virtual and unhinged from
reality.
Still,
the road from Amazon’s “one-click option” to
credit default swaps, a euro on life support, and an
economy on the precipice of a double-dip recession
involves major leaps of faith. The reasons for our
fiscal predicament are complicated and not agreed upon
by economists, let alone psychiatrists. But the idea
that the Internet has contributed by making money
virtual and more abstract deserves serious
consideration.
For the
obscene living-beyond-our-means that characterized the
most recent bubble and the $2 trillion that subsequently
evaporated are an experience in unreality that may have
more in common with the Linden dollar than any familiar
currency or economic model.
It is
somehow telling that gold has risen so much in value as
every other haven has stopped feeling safe enough;
it’s as real as it gets.
———
ABOUT THE
WRITER
Elias
Aboujaoude is a Stanford University psychiatrist and the
author of “Virtually You: The Dangerous Powers of the
E-Personality.” He is co-founder of e-Therapi, a
psychotherapy portal. Readers may write to him at:
Impulse Control Disorders Clinic, Stanford University
School of Medicine, 401 Quarry Rd., Room 2301 A,
Stanford, Calif. 94305; email: eaboujaoude@stanford.edu.
He wrote this for The Free Lance-Star in Fredericksburg,
Va.
This
essay is available to McClatchy-Tribune News Service
subscribers. McClatchy-Tribune did not subsidize the
writing of this column; the opinions are those of the
writer and do not necessarily represent the views of
McClatchy-Tribune or its editors.
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