When the young embrace experience consumption

Over the past few decades, a silent wave has been reshaping consumer behavior worldwide. In many modern shopping centers, escape rooms, cooking classes and indoor surfing simulators have taken the place of the more traditional stores.

Scan social media feeds and you'll find fewer people, especially fewer youths, flaunting new watches or handbags, and more sharing videos of sunset yoga in Bali, food truck "discovery" in Berlin, or a once-in-a-lifetime concert. This is not because social media algorithms today show a biased selection of such experiences, reflecting a real and deeper shift in our financial decisions, what we do with our money, and how we go about pursuing happiness.

As it turns out, consumers are moving away from material goods to experiential purchases for multiple reasons. This trend is complex, and the reasons for it are both good and not so good. On the positive side, two of the main reasons have to do with our search for happiness and meaning, and on the not-so-good side the main reason is the cost of living and its wider implications.

The first positive reason is that "experiences create lasting psychological value". One of the most compelling insights from behavioral science is that experiences, not objects, age better in our minds. Material goods tend to deliver short bursts of pleasure that fade quickly. A new phone or pair of shoes may excite us at first, but we quickly get used to them, an effect psychologists call hedonic adaptation.

Experiences, by contrast, don't lose their value as much over time, and some even gain in value over time. Experiences are not static objects. They live in our memory, our conversations, reflect on our life and, in many cases, become part of our social capital. A vacation, despite us being caught in a thunderstorm and spending the night at an airport, can become a story we tell and retell. It can become a memory of how we overcame a difficult time, and it can be a source of shared experience with our travel companions.

Psychologist Thomas Gilovich and his colleagues at Cornell University have shown that people derive more enduring satisfaction from experiences than from material goods. One reason is that since experiences are unique and hence we go back to them over and over again, keeping their value in our memory high.

Another reason why we derive more enduring satisfaction from experiences than from material goods is that experiences are more resistant to comparison. It's easy to feel regret when someone else buys a better version of the products we own.

But experiences are harder to rank. Our weekend in the countryside isn't diminished because someone else went skiing in Switzerland. The uniqueness of the moment protects its value.

Moreover, experiences are often multilayered in their rewards. There is the anticipation beforehand, the enjoyment in the moment, and the memory afterward. This three-part emotional arc gives experiences a kind of temporal richness that objects simply cannot match.

The second positive reason is that "experiences become part of who we are".Beyond their emotional endurance, experiences also serve a deeper function: they help us define ourselves. Material goods exist outside of us. They are things we own, not who we are.

Experiences provide the raw materials for personal growth, self-expression and transformation. They reveal what matters to us and help us explore new aspects of ourselves.

Importantly, this emphasis on experience reflects some deep psychological benefits. The social and emotional bonds formed through shared experiences are among the most powerful contributors to our long-term well-being. Relationships, after all, are consistently shown to be one of the most important predictors of life satisfaction. And experiences, particularly those shared with others, are fertile ground for those bonds to grow.

The main negative reason is that "life, especially housing, has become unaffordable". The rising cost of housing has made it increasingly difficult for young people and even middle-income people to buy a new home or upgrade their current home in most countries and cities. A lot of people, particularly younger ones are struggling to enter the housing market that once formed the backbone of middle-class stability.

But this is not just a financial story; it's a psychological one.

Homeownership has traditionally served as a long-term psychological anchor for people. A 30-year mortgage structures life around permanence: it encourages stable employment, civic engagement, and local ties. It justifies investments in durable goods and leads to decisions that reinforce long-term planning, such as planning for a longer career with the same employer, saving for retirement, investing in education, or starting a family.

When homeownership becomes inaccessible, the consequences extend beyond economics. From a behavioral science perspective, this contributes to a shortened time horizon — individuals shift their focus from long-term goals to short-term gratifications. The perception that homeownership is impossible can help explain why so many young people today are channeling money into experiences rather than durable goods.

Experiences offer something that the housing market does not: a reliable sense of agency, control, and emotional return. A concert, a trip or a retreat offers meaning without requiring long-term stability. In this way, experiences act as psychological compensation for structural exclusion.

But while experiences provide psychological relief, they cannot fully replace the security and forward momentum that long-term investments offer. The absence of asset accumulation, especially in housing, means many people lack economic buffers. They are more vulnerable to downturns and less able to plan for the future. The psychological strategy of focusing on the present, while adaptive, can reinforce a cycle of instability.

In sum, the shift from buying things to buying experiences is more than just a consumer trend. On the positive side, it reflects a deeper movement toward a richer, more connected and more meaningful way of living.

What looks like freedom can also be a symptom of constraint. The challenge ahead is to recognize both sides of this transformation and to ask how we might build a world that offers not only meaningful experiences, but also a stable foundation to build them on.

The author is a professor at Duke University. The views don't necessarily reflect those of China Daily.

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