HAVING NO LIFE IS THE NEW ASPIRATIONAL LIFESTYLE
Keinan, an associate professor in the Marketing unit at Harvard Business School, explores the phenomenon in a paper forthcoming in the Journal of Consumer Research, “Conspicuous Consumption of Time: When Busyness and Lack of Leisure Time Become a Status Symbol,” co-written with Columbia marketing professor Silvia Bellezza and Georgetown marketing professor Neeru Paharia.
What happened to the good life?
This finding that “busyness” conveys status flies in the face of decades of social history, where enjoyment of nonproductive leisure time was seen as a mark of a successful life.
The ability to fritter away your hours was considered the apex of success as evidenced in books from sociologist Thorstein Veblen’s 1899 classic The Theory of the Leisure Class (he coined the term “conspicuous consumption”) to television shows such as Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous. And if you didn’t actually have a life of leisure, you could pretend you did by buying increasingly affordable luxury brands like Cadillac or Rolex. “People used to spend their time in ostentatiously unproductive ways to show their status,” says Keinan.
But something in our culture has changed about how status is achieved. In the past decade, conspicuous ostentatious consumption has become less socially acceptable. Those wishing to flaunt their status have had to find more subtle ways to show their value. At the same time, our go-go workplaces are emphasizing and rewarding 24x7 productivity.
To study this idea, the researchers set up six experiments to gauge our attitudes about luxury and busyness.
As a preliminary test, the researchers combed through social media posts by celebrities compiled by Harris Wittels, author of Humblebrag, The Art of False Modesty, and found more than 1 in 10 were about being too busy or “not having a life.” (A typical example: “Hi, I’m 16 and I’m publishing 3 books and an album this year. Do you have any advice on how to handle it best?”)
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