Is Clutter a First World Problem?

We’ve obviously been talking a lot this month about clutter as we try to help guide you through your New Year’s goal of de-cluttering and letting go of stuff. But at some point as we were putting together our list of tips, tricks and mental health pointers related to clutter and “stuff”, we had to stop and ask ourselves, “Is this really a first world problem only?” Are we actually feeding into the epidemic more than helping it by giving it such importance? At the end of the day, we decided that it didn’t matter if it was a first world problem, it was still important to help people overcome it. However, we did think that it warranted a discussion about its status as a first world problem to help people put their clutter issues into perspective.

Yes. Clutter is a First World Problem.

The easy part is to answer whether clutter is a first world problem or not. It is. And that’s not to say that you wouldn’t run into the occasional clutterer or hoarder in a developing world environment. But you wouldn’t come across it as frequently as you would in the first world and the causes of the need to clutter or hoard would be somewhat different. Yes, they would still arise primarily from mental or emotional issues that revolve around emotional displacement and a sense of security related to “stuff,” but the triggers and societal pressure would be different. Additionally, and why clutter is predominantly a first world problem, there simply aren’t the resources or the time to care to collect boxes and boxes of “stuff” in most developing nations. If your choice is to grow your food or collect “stuff”, well, that choice seems obvious and we lament the tragedy when people don’t have enough.

So What Is Causing Clutter in the First World?

It would be easy to say that clutter builds up in the first world simply because it’s the wealthiest part of the world and has more access to financial resources (though obviously as class distinction grows this becomes less and less true) and “stuff” to buy. But the answer is much more complicated than that and rooted primarily in social constructs of economic privilege and economic injustice. Even the current terminology indicates our cultural bias – truthfully Africa has always been the first world. When we broke it down during our discussion, we came up with four primary reasons that clutter has grown to such a massive issue in the currently skewed first world.

The Culture of More, More, More: The biggest factor is simply that we live in a society where you’re encouraged to think (some might say programmed) that your self-worth is tied to how much “stuff” you have. When you’re told that you have more value if you have more stuff, then the instinct is to go and purchase or acquire that stuff. But then what do you do with it? In reality, you probably don’t need very much of the same “stuff” you’ve acquired, so it turns into clutter. This is probably the biggest issue with why clutter is so predominant in the first world – and it’s enforced by the second factor that contributes to clutter as a first world problem.

The Consumer Media Machine: The reach of the consumer media machine in the first world (and particularly America) is so vast it’s almost indescribable. It truly began to explode with the advent of television, but now it’s not just in print and television scenarios, it’s everywhere that there can be a screen. All of that time that you spend on Facebook? You’re constantly being exposed to consumer media messages. And of course don’t even log into your email unless you want to sift through consumer media message after message. Your physical mailbox. The screens on the gas pumps at gas stations. Television screens in restaurants and bars. The radio. The movies. We’re sure you can expand on this list. The point is that the consumer media monster is everywhere – and it’s telling you that you need to buy more, more and more.

The Big Box Store Phenomenon: Of course, you can’t load up on buying stuff unless you can afford “stuff.” That’s where the problem with big box stores arises. The model of big box stores is to provide you with lots of goods at very cheap prices so that the more you buy, the more you want. Of course, there are a number of problems with this model besides the disease of addiction. Firstly, typically the items you buy will not last as long so you’re actually even buying more. Secondly, to maintain the model of big box stores, wages and benefits for workers are typically (though not always) suppressed, so you’re adding to the socio-economic class problems arising in the United States and elsewhere. And of course, there are a slew of environmental issues as well as socio-global issues. But at the end of the day, more and more first world residents are turning to big box stores to accumulate more and more and more … “stuff.”

The Association Between Emotion and “Stuff”: You won’t find very many developing nations where such a great degree of sentimental value is attached to so many items. Yes, in every culture there are heirloom items or items that you’ll want to keep, but in most first world countries that concept gets taken to a much higher level where every item is associated with some type of mental or emotional connection to when it was bought or who bought it or where people were when they bought it. When you assign a mental or emotional value to a thing, it makes it much harder to let go of it. And that leads to clutter.

So, the question isn’t really “Is clutter a first world problem?” Because it obviously is. And the question isn’t “Why is clutter a first world problem?” Because the answers seem obvious. The real question is “How can we create a first world society with less emphasis on ‘stuff’ and therefore less clutter so that other people on a sustainable planet have more?” And we like to think that Postconsumers is here to help do exactly that.

Did we miss a reason that clutter is a first world problem that you want to share with us? If so, just tell us about it on one of the social media channels below.