A Culture Of Disposability America Has Developed A...

A Culture of Disposability America has developed a strong sense of consumerism over the last decades. This has led to an increase in production levels and the variety of products available. This is in a way a result of America’s strong economy and availability of resources. This boom in the market has also introduced new marketing techniques that try to increase the level of consumption in America even further. Two of these techniques are planned obsolescence and perceived obsolescence. Both of these techniques target the average consumer and make him constantly replace his possessions using physical and psychological factors. The sale of electronic devices for entertainment benefits a lot from planned and perceived obsolescence, and although this happens mainly in the United States, El Salvador is no stranger to this phenomenon. Planned obsolescence is when a manufacturer purposely designs a product for it to stop working after a certain amount of time so that the consumers find themselves in the need to replace it. It is a marketing technique that ensures a constant consumption of the same item and therefore it is highly profitable for the seller of the product. However, the product needs to work perfectly for a moderate amount of time to gain the trust of the consumer; therefore, planned obsolescence is a very complicated art. However, it is really easy to carry out planned obsolescence in electronic devices used for entertainment. This is because of two factors. The