“Is consumerism created by our consumption needs, or are our consumption needs created by Consumerism? Do religious and political-economic systems create our personal values and uses, or vice versa?”-D’Acci
To what extend to exterior forces influence our interior or personal thoughts, beliefs, ideas and choices? As the world around us is constantly evolving, are our ideas and beliefs constantly evolving, or do we stay true to ourselves?
This is basically one of the oldest issues in psychology: nature vs. nurture. To what extent heredity and environment shape who we are?
As the world around us is constantly evolving, I believe that our ideas and thoughts are evolving as well. With the scientific advancements in society, certain ideas can easily be proven wrong. Nonetheless, they are very interrelated as our innovations create the new technologies and the new technologies then again influence our ideas.
In a society where social media is extremely prevalent in our lives and information about ourselves and others is so readily accessible to social media corporations and companies it is confident to say that we are extremely influenced by external forces. Because we reveal so much, these external forces whether it is media, corporations, or even people are able to target and monitor our perception of things and what we are exposed to in the world. In this way, our thoughts, ideas and even decision making are influenced and can be changed, a lot of times even without our awareness. For example, with all the information we provide to online websites such as Facebook and Google, companies are then able to use this information to control what advertisements, websites, and even news we are exposed to. Although it can be perceived as us being exposed more to our interests this form of marketing and advertising limits ourselves from anything outside of our own, personal interests, giving us a tunnel vision of the world and society.