Want to learn the ideas in The Impulse Society better than ever? Read the world’s #1 book summary of The Impulse Society by Paul Roberts here.

Read a brief 1-Page Summary or watch video summaries curated by our expert team. Note: this book guide is not affiliated with or endorsed by the publisher or author, and we always encourage you to purchase and read the full book.

Video Summaries of The Impulse Society

We’ve scoured the Internet for the very best videos on The Impulse Society, from high-quality videos summaries to interviews or commentary by Paul Roberts.

1-Page Summary of The Impulse Society

Overview

This book is about how our society has become addicted to consumption. People believe that they can buy happiness, but in reality it’s a serious problem and we need to stop consuming so much. There’s no time like the present!

We have endless possibilities as consumers. We can buy products that fit our needs, and we can even customize the things we buy to suit us perfectly. For example, there are smartphones that fit our every need, cars with high-tech features, and neighborhoods designed just for us.

However, it comes with a great social cost. We now live in an “I want it now” society where immediate gratification is expected and instant results are the norm.

The status quo is also evident in our everyday lives, and it’s seen in institutions as well.

Our impulse society is not a way of life that we should aspire to. There are many problems with this type of society, and the author points out how we got here and what steps need to be taken in order to solve these issues.

In this article, you will learn how the Ford Model T was the first car to have a personal bubble around it. You will also find out that America’s health care system is expensive and not very good. Finally, you’ll discover that in the future there might be computerized lawyers that can do your job for you.

Big Idea #1: Today’s societies are short-sighted, selfish and impulsive.

If you throw a rock in any city, it will probably hit someone who is young and hip. This person has the latest styles of clothing and accessories, like an iPhone or hair that’s been styled with care.

Hipsters are irritating, but they’re also a reflection of today’s society. We have the freedom to design our own identities and personal space through consumption of goods and services. Search engines and smartphones anticipate our needs; we can fine-tune our moods with music or drugs; customize our bodies with surgery; or move to neighborhoods that align with our values.

We are always trying to make the world our own. It’s an impulse that we have in society.

Seventy percent of the United States’ economy is based on consumption, rather than production. Production was more important 100 years ago. Americans today are focused on having things right now and don’t think about issues that will affect them in the future. A hundred years ago, Adam Smith argued that when individuals pursue their own self-interests, an economy emerges that benefits a majority of people in society. This is what has happened with America’s economy: it created wealth while spurring innovation and individual adaptability – which isn’t so bad!

But in today’s society, we often forget about the needs of others. We may buy things like teeth whiteners and plasma screens that are unnecessary, but when it comes to important necessities like education or infrastructure, we don’t deliver. Tom Wolfe predicted this kind of behavior decades ago and was not nearly pessimistic enough.

Big Idea #2: Companies jumped on the bandwagon to help us with our personal needs. They ignored public needs in favor of making a profit.

In order to understand why our society is so impulsive, we have to look back at history and see how one invention—the assembly line—has changed everything.

It used to be incredibly slow and expensive to build cars, until Henry Ford came up with the idea of moving assembly lines. This efficiency made it possible for almost everyone to afford a car. The same thing happened with other consumer items, such as telephones and radios.

Eventually, people got used to and stopped buying the inexpensive cars. To keep sales up, GM’s president had to do something different. He decided that psychology was an important factor in selling cars, so he started using psychological techniques to sell his vehicles.