The image of the self in turn, was perceived as a life- force in touch with guardian spirits. When one was out of balance with the natural order these spirits became inaccessible. Moreover, consumerism is increasing due to highly sophisticated advertising that convinces us that we are inadequate unless we by an endless array of consumer goods and services. Although modern advertising is the largest single psychological project ever undertaken by humankind it is mostly ignored by western psychology. Jerry Mander descried how advertising takes advantage of the fact that inanimate objects such as toasters and fax machines, gain appeal and aliveness in the two-dimensional field of TV and billboards, while animate objects such as plants and people, lose their aliveness.
Advertising makes technology seem superior and necessary.
Consumer addiction becomes more pervasive in cities, where people do not have undeveloped land with which to interact. As a result they often feel resigned to, or even trapped in, a shopping mall culture. Consumerism also gives people the illusion that they are participating in the sophisticated technological process that created the product. Technology is a major component of science and has become viewed as the highest achievement of humanity. But because few of us can be engineers or scientists, consuming their products becomes a way to feel involved with this highly valued process.