The term 'postmodernity' has been used to describe that
historical transformation of the late 20th century when the
institutional breaks holding back individual emancipation
disintegrated, thereby giving rise to the full expression of
individual desires and the quest for self-fulfilment. But there are
now signs - argues Gilles Lipovetsky, one of the most
original social thinkers in France today - that we've
entered a new phase of 'hypermodernity', characterized
by hyper-consumption and the hypermodern individual.

Hyperconsumption is a consumption which absorbs and integrates
more and more spheres of social life and which encourages
individuals to consume for their own personal pleasure rather than
to enhance their social status. Hypermodernity is a society
characterized by movement, fluidity and flexibility, distanced more
than ever from the great structuring principles of modernity. And
the hypermodern individual, while oriented towards pleasure and
hedonism, is also filled with the kind of tension and anxiety that
comes from living in a world which has been stripped of tradition
and which faces an uncertain future. Individuals are gnawed by
anxiety; fear has superimposed itself on their pleasures, and
anguish on their liberation. Everything worries and alarms them,
and there are no longer any beliefs systems to which they can turn
for assurance. These are hypermodern times.