If you rent a self-storage unit to keep all your junk, then you're why there's a boom in the self-storage business: there are over 50,000 storage centers in the United States and a growing number in the UK.Sure self-storage is a convenient method to store your stuff when you're moving, but for a growing number of people, storage rental has morphed from a temporary fix to a more permanent thing. Tom de Castella and Kate Dailey of the BBC News Magazine explains:
Oliver James, psychologist and author of Affluenza, says that the self-storage phenomenon can be explained by consumerism's effect on how we view ourselves.
Our identity has increasingly become associated with products, he argues, and not just the mortgage and the car, but smaller items. "We've confused who we are with what we have," he says.
It explains why we're so reluctant to throw things away. "We feel it might come in handy one day. It feels like it's a little part of yourself even though it's just tat. You wouldn't want to throw yourself away would you?"
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