Understand
6 min
Do I Need This, or Do I Just Keep Seeing It on TikTok?
The other day, I was clearing out Apple Notes when I came across a shopping list. Furniture, clothes, little things for the house… And I knew exactly where I’d found every single one of them: social media. Pinterest, in my case.
Do I need most of the things on that list? I’m not sure. Do I want them? That, I was sure of. Until I started wondering: did I actually want any of this, or had I just seen it so many times that it felt like my idea?
Today, we’re talking about what happens to our wallets when an algorithm helps write our wish lists. We’ll also look at something you might have seen on those same feeds: the no-buy.
But first, if you’re new here, hi! The little voice talking to you is Laureline. I’m the co-founder and designer of Jomo. Since 2022, we’ve been building an app that helps you take back control of your phone and block the apps you want a break from. We also write this blog, where we share tips, put together tutorials, and dig into everything from internet trends to why certain apps are so hard to put down.
Let’s get into it! 👀
How Social Media Changed the Way We Shop
Take a minute to think about how you shop in 2026. When was the last time you opened a social app and didn’t see a product for sale? Sometimes it’s an ad. Sometimes it’s just sitting there on someone’s bathroom shelf while they talk about their morning.
Social media now plays a part in decisions we used to make elsewhere. In France, for example, E-Commerce Nation describes how people use social platforms to discover products, compare options, get recommendations, and sometimes make the purchase right there in the app [1].
How Does a Feed Convince Us to Buy?
A few familiar tricks work particularly well together. Two of them show up in my feed all the time.
1. Repetition: “See Me Often Enough and You’ll Start to Like Me”
There’s a name for this: the mere-exposure effect.
Encountering something repeatedly can make us like it more. The person, place, or product hasn’t necessarily changed. It just feels familiar now.
My favorite example? The Stanley tumbler. I had no idea this particular cup existed. Then one morning it was on Instagram. Then it was on Pinterest. Then someone walked past me carrying one. Suddenly, it was everywhere.
I didn’t want one. I didn’t need one. And then I caught myself thinking: Maybe I do need a water bottle. I mean, I don’t drink enough water. And this one would be perfect because… Relax, I didn’t buy it!
Apparently, I wasn’t the only one whose feed filled up with Stanley tumblers. The craze even became the subject of a case study:
“The Stanley Tumbler phenomenon illustrates how emotionally driven and socially shared content can transform public perception and consumer behavior.”
— Haryadi Sarjono, Dita Michaela Agustina, and Angeline
2. Lifestyle: You’re Buying the Life That Goes With It
Here’s what makes a product pitch on social media feel different from a traditional ad. You see the product as part of somebody’s day. By the end of their routine, you have a pretty good picture of the life you could be living if you owned it, too.
It helps that the person on screen feels like someone you could know. You follow along, their routine looks lovely, and it’s easy to start comparing your morning with theirs.
Take a fitness video. You don’t work out much. You don’t even particularly like working out. But by the end of the video, you’re eyeing a €200 Pilates outfit, looking up €300 running shoes, and wondering about that smartwatch. So that’s what’s been missing from my exercise routine! You get the idea.
What’s Wrong With Wanting Nice Things?
You might be thinking: I own plenty of things. I can afford them. They make me happy. Fair enough. But take a look around. How much of what you see do you actually use? Which purchases still make your day a little better? And which ones do you wish you’d left in your cart?
Art by Steph Meade
For me, that’s where it gets a little less rosy. Four things stand out:
Buying more becomes the plan. If owning more is how you expect to feel happier, what do you do when the feeling wears off? Buy something else. It’s an expensive loop to get caught in.
The novelty wears off. Think about getting a new phone. For the first few days, you’re thrilled with it. Then it becomes… your phone. It works just as well, but the little lift you got from owning it has faded. That’s hedonic adaptation. And now something shiny is catching your eye again.
Disposable purchases leave something behind. A cheap gadget might cost next to nothing at checkout, but it still takes materials and energy to make. And it has to go somewhere when it breaks or you’re done with it. Multiply that by all the little things we buy and throw away. We’ve only got the one planet.
Low prices can make you feel richer than you are. Each item looks like a bargain, until you add up a month’s worth of them. If something wears out quickly, you may end up paying for it twice. There’s another trick here, too: a feed full of shopping hauls can shift your idea of what “normal” spending looks like. Suddenly €300 a month on clothes looks like what everyone spends, and €150 on cosmetics sounds like the bare minimum. Says who?
Buying Less: What Is a No-Buy?
A no-buy is a decision to pause certain kinds of spending. If you’d rather ease into it, you can try a gentler slow-buy. Either way, you get to decide what you’ll buy, instead of letting whatever turns up in your feed decide for you. Your rules might look something like this:
I’ll buy: groceries, transportation, medication, and a replacement for something that’s broken and that I actually use.
I’ll skip: clothes I don’t need, trendy decor, gadgets, beauty products beyond my everyday essentials, and anything I’m about to buy on impulse.
The point isn’t to deprive yourself. You don’t have to stop spending altogether or buy something wildly expensive because someone says it’s “better.” The point is to choose. You can buy a shirt. Maybe you don’t need fifteen.
Art by Steph Meade
A no-buy brings back something that’s all but disappeared from online shopping: a reason to pause. These days, you can go from seeing something for the first time to paying for it in a few taps. Whole businesses are built around making that moment as easy as possible. Your finger can hit “Buy” before you’ve had time to work out why.
A no-buy puts a little space between I want that and I just paid for that. Enough time to ask: Do I actually need it?
Three Ways to Try It
1. Use the 72-Hour Rule
See something you like? Put it on a shopping list in your notes app. Leave it there, go about your day, and come back to it 72 hours later.
Do you still want it? Do you need it? Would you be looking for it today if nobody had shown it to you? My favorite question: what problem did I have before I knew this product existed?
For a bigger purchase, give yourself a little longer. Write down the pros and cons, compare a few alternatives, and look for independent reviews alongside recommendations from creators the brand has paid.
2. Give Your Feed Fewer Chances to Sell to You
The more time you spend on social media, the more chances a product has to catch your eye. That’s especially easy on short-video feeds, where the next pitch is only a swipe away. You can keep the apps you enjoy and still make them a little less present in your day.
Say TikTok is the app where you lose an hour or three. Try keeping it blocked by default and giving yourself three openings a day to start. In Jomo, you can add an unlock exercise, like retyping a message that’s just pointed enough to make you ask: Hang on. What did I come here to do? You can use the same setup for a shopping app.
In this example, Jomo allows three five-minute visits to Amazon per day. Screenshot: Jomo.
Jomo is free to download on iPhone, iPad, and Mac. We built it so you can get a say in how you spend your screen time, without deleting all your apps, moving to a monastery, or feeling like you’ve been grounded from your phone.
3. Remove a Few Temptations
It’s hard to forget about a cart when a brand keeps reminding you that you left something in it. If you’re getting nudges to hurry, hurry, check out now! all day long, try these:
Unsubscribe from promotional emails.
Turn off shopping notifications.
Delete shopping apps you open out of habit.
Remove your saved card details. You can skip Apple Pay for impulse-prone purchases, too, if you’d like a little more time to think.
Unfollow brands and creators whose posts are mostly product pitches.
The Takeaway 🍔
I’m not here to tell you to stop buying things or to boo anyone who likes shopping. Buy the thing because you need it, or because you have a reason you feel good about beyond “I saw it on TikTok and it looked cool.” The question I’m taking back to that list in Apple Notes is this: who decided I wanted it, me or my feed?
If you enjoyed this article, share it with someone who might like it, or let us know what you thought. You can also help choose our next topic right here. That one’s free!
This article was written by a human whose strong suits don’t include spelling or writing in English. AI helped with translation and proofreading. ✨
And if you’d like to try Jomo Plus free for 14 days, you can use my referral code: FG2HA9.
🫡 See you next Monday!
