technoism
n.— «“Because everyone else has it” reverberates as a familiar refrain on holiday wish lists. And that is definitely a symptom of “technoism,” a term Davis coined to describe purchases made to keep up rather than to meet a particular function.» —“Gadgets seduce buyers with newness, not need” by Dave Gussow St. Petersburg Times (Florida) Dec. 19, 2005. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)
Further reading
What if, instead of being an inanimate object, a dictionary were alive? That’s the idea behind a lavishly illustrated new children’s book called The Dictionary Story (Bookshop|Amazon) by Oliver Jeffers and Sam Winston. This is part of a...
Chad in Hilliard, Florida, wonders about the expression old as Methuselah, meaning “extremely advanced in years.” The phrase references Methuselah, a figure in Jewish, Islamic, and Christian tradition said to be 969 years old when he...