<story><title>What’s Causing the Rise of Hoarding Disorder?</title><url>https://daily.jstor.org/whats-causing-the-rise-of-hoarding-disorder/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>jdietrich</author><text>&lt;i&gt;&amp;gt;it&amp;#x27;s easier to acquire a large amount of stuff than before&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;I suspect this is &lt;i&gt;the&lt;/i&gt; factor. A behaviour that is adaptive in an environment of scarcity becomes maladaptive in an environment of abundance.&lt;p&gt;When my grandmother was a child, practically the only thing that genuinely counted as &amp;quot;garbage&amp;quot; was ash from the fire. Pretty much everything else had a meaningful value. Scraps of paper could light the fire. Scraps of cloth could make a quilt or a rug. Vegetable peelings went to the pigs and not a morsel of edible food was wasted. Packaging wasn&amp;#x27;t a word anyone was familiar with, but boxes and tins would be saved for re-use. Furniture was repaired and re-repaired until it was only good for firewood.&lt;p&gt;A lot of people were essentially raised to be hoarders, either through direct experience or transmission of those values from their parents. That mindset isn&amp;#x27;t irrational, but it&amp;#x27;s a poor match for the 21st century. It&amp;#x27;s all too easy to lose sight of the purpose of those values and hoard for the sake of hoarding.&lt;p&gt;I think that similar factors explain a significant part of the obesity epidemic. The scarcity-era virtues of clearing your plate and being a generous host become vices in a world of supersized portions and supermarket offers.</text></item><item><author>im3w1l</author><text>Smaller living space means that you can&amp;#x27;t save the thing you will need once every five year anymore. A previously adaptive behavior becomes poorly adaptive.&lt;p&gt;Cheap disposable items. Where before you would have a few hand made item of high quality, you now get a lot of lower quality items. This is partially related to technological advancement. If things become obsolete fast, it doesn&amp;#x27;t make sense to build with quality. Anyway a consequence is that it&amp;#x27;s easier to acquire a large amount of stuff than before.&lt;p&gt;Anti-landfill propaganda. We are guilt-tripped for throwing stuff in the garbage. We are told to dispose of things in very complicated ways and then it may be easier to just not dispose of it.&lt;p&gt;Breakdown of community and family. Before we might keep things around by giving them away to relatives or friends. There is a satisfaction in passing the torch. But this option isn&amp;#x27;t as available anymore.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>mywacaday</author><text>My dad was brought up relatively poor by modern standards, food was on the table but would have went to school barefoot. Never eats less than five large potatoes for dinner and has a large shed(20mx20m) full of mostly metal scrap. He does use it for projects like making trailers&amp;#x2F;wood splitting machines etc but has accumulated more than he could use in a lifetime to the point where the shed is unusable.&lt;p&gt;I definitely believe this behavior comes from his don&amp;#x27;t waste anything childhood and to be fair he probably earned as much from his tinkering as he did from his main job which would have come from the same strong work ethic childhood.</text></comment>
<story><title>What’s Causing the Rise of Hoarding Disorder?</title><url>https://daily.jstor.org/whats-causing-the-rise-of-hoarding-disorder/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>jdietrich</author><text>&lt;i&gt;&amp;gt;it&amp;#x27;s easier to acquire a large amount of stuff than before&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;I suspect this is &lt;i&gt;the&lt;/i&gt; factor. A behaviour that is adaptive in an environment of scarcity becomes maladaptive in an environment of abundance.&lt;p&gt;When my grandmother was a child, practically the only thing that genuinely counted as &amp;quot;garbage&amp;quot; was ash from the fire. Pretty much everything else had a meaningful value. Scraps of paper could light the fire. Scraps of cloth could make a quilt or a rug. Vegetable peelings went to the pigs and not a morsel of edible food was wasted. Packaging wasn&amp;#x27;t a word anyone was familiar with, but boxes and tins would be saved for re-use. Furniture was repaired and re-repaired until it was only good for firewood.&lt;p&gt;A lot of people were essentially raised to be hoarders, either through direct experience or transmission of those values from their parents. That mindset isn&amp;#x27;t irrational, but it&amp;#x27;s a poor match for the 21st century. It&amp;#x27;s all too easy to lose sight of the purpose of those values and hoard for the sake of hoarding.&lt;p&gt;I think that similar factors explain a significant part of the obesity epidemic. The scarcity-era virtues of clearing your plate and being a generous host become vices in a world of supersized portions and supermarket offers.</text></item><item><author>im3w1l</author><text>Smaller living space means that you can&amp;#x27;t save the thing you will need once every five year anymore. A previously adaptive behavior becomes poorly adaptive.&lt;p&gt;Cheap disposable items. Where before you would have a few hand made item of high quality, you now get a lot of lower quality items. This is partially related to technological advancement. If things become obsolete fast, it doesn&amp;#x27;t make sense to build with quality. Anyway a consequence is that it&amp;#x27;s easier to acquire a large amount of stuff than before.&lt;p&gt;Anti-landfill propaganda. We are guilt-tripped for throwing stuff in the garbage. We are told to dispose of things in very complicated ways and then it may be easier to just not dispose of it.&lt;p&gt;Breakdown of community and family. Before we might keep things around by giving them away to relatives or friends. There is a satisfaction in passing the torch. But this option isn&amp;#x27;t as available anymore.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>reitanqild</author><text>&amp;gt; Pretty much everything else had a meaningful value.&lt;p&gt;My childhood. And I&amp;#x27;m not that old.&lt;p&gt;I still feel the urge to peel wrapping paper carefully off and stash it away for next celebration. (I don&amp;#x27;t do it though :-)&lt;p&gt;Oh, and I&amp;#x27;m hoping to get some animals to eat the peelings and old bread.</text></comment>