You want to prove something of season, you get into a store and find a fabulous dress, can you imagine to take a poster on the label to warn you: Beware buy this garment can affect your economy and social relations, think about if you need before you buy? How would you feel if while cotillions your favorite online store will appear one by warning banner to bring a quarter of an hour of shopping and carrying the basket? If shopping addiction were similar to the game, for example, the message could be: you carry more than 15 minutes and more than 100 dollars of purchase. Watch out! Buy online is addictive! Unthinkable, right?
Out one afternoon to buy and consume in online stores is an act so widespread and common as harmless, however, according to a study, 7% of the population may have a disorder related to purchases, and between affected people, eight out of ten are women. Input data do not seem to be taken lightly, but then, why the addiction to shopping does not arouse the same media attention and other addictions?
It is still early to be clear … or so it seems
When it comes to determining a chemical addiction, doctors, psychologists and psychiatrists have few diagnostic criteria that serve as their guide, as well as protocols for prevention and treatment. Instead about shopping addiction I still have not reached a strong consensus among professionals about whether it is an addiction or an impulse control disorder or conduct.
It was not until the latest version of DSM-5 (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders), published in 2013, which has had a category relating to non-substance-related disorders, in which the disorder is included game, which opens the door to future diagnoses of other behavioral addictions like shopping, internet, sex …
But for now there is no agreement on key points such as whether the behavior associated is totally impulsive or includes planned actions, if part of the reward circuitry of the common drugs rather than used to relieve anxiety and other problems, or if appropriate to treat or not with drugs … In short, there is still much to investigate and learn.
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It is not easy to separate normal from pathological
If a friend tells us to be alone every day bingo, or who likes to drink half a bottle of vodka every night, we will surely trigger all alarms and will relate these behaviors with an addiction, but instead, if we realize that it has bought four pairs of shoes today, yesterday three coats in an online store and that tomorrow will pass through the center to look things most likely to cause envy us.
In a world in which reigns materialistic culture and consumption, buying more than necessary (even much more than necessary) is not associated with a problem, rather successful and high social status. Another thing is that after accumulating debts and the situation is complicated to the point of ruin life.
We have no doubt that smoking is bad, but shopping? Shopping is great! Active economy, makes us happy, makes us see more beautiful … Some experts differ compulsive buying normal that the first is not rational, but how many purchases we usually do habitually they are? The line between normal and pathological is sometimes very diffuse and even more difficult to differentiate when you consider that since the beginning of an addictive problem until acknowledged spend an average of 13 years.
The same goes for the visa and credits. Debt to acquire things is very common, like compulsive shopping that although there also are excessive or escape, no harm done because whoever has enough purchasing power.
The difference that makes the current account
It is easier to recognize an addict, or that this Admit you need help, when he gets in trouble. If we merge all payroll clothes and then cannot pay the rent or food, our behavior is clearly maladaptive and hurts us. But what about those addicted to shopping prevailing in Instagram or live reality shows? How many people do not have them as role models?
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Consume compulsively, if there is extra money, it is not considered an addiction, though escape your control or you obsess, however if you’re addicted to marijuana, you are rich or poor, are addicted to marijuana, no confusion.
How could take preventive steps toward shopping addiction when virtually everything around us invites us to consume? Advertising, shopping malls, offers, dates such as Black Friday or rebates focus precisely on getting us to buy the maximum of things, completely irrational.
Warning messages on packets of snuff negatively tobacco affect the limited entry of gamblers to casinos or bingo affects the gaming industry, but tries to curb addiction to shopping, going against the interest of the whole society of consumption.
So with this last point we have another possible reason (weight) more so that this addiction does not have the same status as the rest, ultimately neither is easy to detect, much less to avoid or prevent. Though perhaps only in the case of a matter of time, there is still much to discover our brain in general and in particular addictions.
What do you think of addiction to shopping? Does it seem as serious as other addictions?
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