Experiences vs Material (Stuffocation)

Consider a society where material happiness is relatively easier to find. People may likely start to feel that they have or are vying for too much material.

A few of important points of thought I gleaned from the talk:

• Experiences make an individual happier than material. It may seem at first (and research may point to this on the outset) that a well off modern society is required for stuffocation to take root. While this seems intuitively true, I can't argue with the logic that experience, will still bring more happiness even to someone who can't afford an expensive tablet, but can spend tea time chatting and laughing with friends. 
• Your experiences matter more than what you own. This seems like a pretty old concept, so can't argue much here. What you do defines you much more than what you say. Your words are just something you own. Your actions are something that can only result from what you are, what you have experienced.
  It's about the journey, not the destination -- another related phrase, more on it in next point.
• People regard status, local as well as global to some extent, very highly. They want to be at least as good as the neighbour if not more. While James (from the video) mostly only talks about experiences and happiness, I'd go so far as to include bad experience and contentedness into the picture. Even if it's because you're working that much harder to buy what your neighbor bought, in the end, what you enjoy, what you learn from are either the process of acquisition or the end result of using said item; whether you do the latter or not is up to you of course.
  Bad experiences that teach us, are equally as important in shaping not just your knowledge, but also character.
• Consumerism has it's place, without abundance, having a perspective of stuffocation is lost and we are still left with many easily tractable problems.
  The more you have may lead to more experiences worth having. But defining this sentiment in more exact terms, is I think very hard. Because just like information (or food), it's mostly about how well you digest that information rather than how much of it you have. Which requires experience, bringing us back to the original point.

Despite the evangelical appearance of the talk, it was quite thought provoking.

Some reading material:

http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/597049

http://link.springer.com/article/10.1023/A:1024409732742#page-1

http://psycnet.apa.org/journals/psp/85/6/1193/