I was thinking consume more like conspicuous consumption for clout. There's been lifestyle inflation, i believe due to social media, compared to times when society was more social. I'm running of general feelings here though, not specific datasets.
Somethings that come to mind: Expensive smart phones, fast fashion clothing spend, travel, tattoos, car feature creep leading to price increases and more loans taken, sq foot per person in housing, Food as an identity statement (more foreign/imported/, more protein are two trends I believe are true).
For me, the chain of events was like this.
I had disposable income > i had no social network or things to do > so i went out and joined a running group and made friends like that.
Others probably choose gaming or something else they can do alone in the third stage.
I doubt there are many people who spent on gaming without first going through the “I don’t have things to do” stage.