3 Unfortunate Behaviors Of People Too Reliant On Convenience, According To Psychology
Psychology says people's reliance on convenience has three unfortunate consequences.
DimaBerlin | Shutterstock We now live in a world where if you don't want to be inconvenienced in any way, you don't have to be. If you have enough money, you can make it so you never have to go grocery shopping ever again, or cook yourself another meal if you don't want to. Texting and social media have removed the need for interpersonal inconveniences, too — that's the whole point of ghosting, after all.
The problem is that's not how life is supposed to work, and it's not how we're wired to be. We are now experiencing the repercussions of jettisoning all of that for a bunch of apps, and it's taking its toll.
Here are three behaviors of people who are too reliant on convenience, according to psychology:
"The pursuit of convenience is making you more depressed and less interesting," TikToker Malvika said in a recent video about the subject, and she's exactly right. Science has actually studied how this is impacting us socially, physically, and mentally, and while the corporations raking in all the money from our addiction to convenience are definitely benefiting from it hugely, the rest of us are not. Here are three problems our addiction to convenience is linked to.
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1. Overspending
The apps we use to buy goods and services are literally designed to make us overspend, by using subtle cues to nudge us toward a higher total — free shipping if you spend $50 is great, but what if you only need $10 of stuff?
For many people, this results in parting with distressing amounts of money—sums that cause an actual financial problem. Others aren't so extreme, of course, but regardless—all those shipping, delivery and "service" fees add up really quickly, needlessly sucking money out of your wallet. And in a time when every dollar counts, that frequently doesn't make sense.
2. Loneliness
It is a simple fact of science that you, me, and every human on this planet is wired for community. It's literally embedded in our brains and is part of how our species has survived this long. We likely can't fight off a tiger alone, but if you and I team up, I can cause a diversion while you kill the tiger. And here we are, still kicking 10,000 years later.
But the kicker is, your brain doesn't know you live in 2025 where there are no tigers and avoiding that community is actually survivable. So it craves it anyway. And when it doesn't get it, you feel lonely and depressed. In fact, science has found that we are unable to even fully understand ourselves without this feeling of community.
And going to a restaurant instead of ordering DoorDash or going to the grocery store instead of using Instacart does in fact count as this community. Studies have shown that just being out in public can help with depression, for example. They may not be a full substitute for true interpersonal intimacy, but your brain registers those simple interactions with the waiter or the neighbor you waved to on the way to the grocery store, and they make a difference.
3. Mental health issues like depression and anxiety
The previous two combine to both exacerbate and create mental health issues. Of course, our age of convenience can be a benefit, too. Mental health issues like depression, anxiety, ADHD, and scores of others all affect our executive function, so not having to cook or shop can be a godsend when we're struggling.
But mental health experts agree these modern conveniences can also end up exacerbating these conditions. Aside from robbing us of the simple feeling of accomplishment we can get from triumphing over our condition to get a task done — which can be revelatory when you're really struggling — the apps we rely on for convenience can create just as many problems as they solve.
As discussed above, these apps are literally designed to nudge you toward higher spending, and those dealing with mental health issues are even more susceptible to this because of the ways these conditions affect impulsivity and memory — and higher spending equals higher stress. Higher stress, in turn, exacerbates pretty much any mental health condition.
There are other negative impacts of our addiction to convenience too, from the destruction of our planet to our actual bodies — all those takeout containers and plastics have been found to be full of toxic chemicals, for example.
Our age of convenience is, well, convenient, and there's nothing wrong with taking advantage of it. But given the ways our communities are crumbling, our wallets are shriveling, our mental health is eroding and our economy is becoming increasingly predatory, it seems like we're long overdue to rein it in a bit. Every aspect of our lives will probably thank us if we do.
John Sundholm is a writer, editor, and video personality with 20 years of experience in media and entertainment. He covers culture, mental health, and human interest topics.