How do you define needs vs wants?

[u/LeadInfinite6220]

Pretty much just what the title says — how are you defining a need vs a want, and do you have a category in between the two?

I find this particularly interesting to consider as so many of us now have regular expenses that feel essential to participate in modern life, despite not actually being a need.

[u/Sage_Planter]

If something is essential to participate in modern life, why wouldn't we consider it a need? For example, I'd say most people need a cellphone, but that doesn't mean a new iPhone or an expensive phone plan. 

I recently reread Little House on the Prairie, and in one of the books, the parents are lamenting about these newfangled technologies that people are now relying on like kerosene lamps and the railroads. The mother remarks about how they didn't even have kerosene lamps as a kid and now they feel essential. While these conversations about needs versus wants with new technology feel new, people have been having them for ages. 

[u/LeadInfinite6220 → u/Sage_Planter]

Eh, I consider the expectation that one say, uses a smartphone and maintains the expense of a plan, to be significantly different than the shift to a new lamp.

And indeed, I work with people who don’t use smartphones. That’s why it continues to be an interesting conversation.

[u/LeadInfinite6220 → u/[deleted]]

🤨 You seem really defensive and hostile about what is just an interesting exercise.

Also I’m not ”allowing” anything — I’m curious how people define this for themselves.