Is alienation due to capitalist economic exploitation and consumer culture...

Both actually are symptoms of Capitalism.
The Capital needs to eradicate any obstacle for consumers. Traditional values and belief systems are obvious obstacles.

>Go out to dinner. Look around. Families are all on electric devices. This has nothing to do with economics or culture, but a new medium that is destroying traditional communication.
That has nothing to do with electronic devices or the medium either; that is entirely individual choice
1930's_subway_everyone_reading_newspaper_it_used_to_be_so_different_back_then.jpg

>but without proof and without any evidence of actual reality.
>has never lurked /r9k/
Its easy for you to say, you cant get enough time alone

The alienation you feel is due to your browsing of Veeky Forums.

>or

They are not exclusive. It's both.

Both, but

>capitalist economic exploitation and consumer culture

It's dangerous to combine these two concepts together, capitalism merely refers to the mode of distribution of resources, exploitation and consumerism are simply the manifestation of cultural attitudes, but exploitation doesn't mean anything anymore unless you're talking about slavery. No one is truly exploited in a capitalist economy without their consent, unconscious or otherwise

the fact you're seriously asking if people are depressed if they're overworked or because we don't live in some fictionalized leave-it-to-beaver universe should tell you enough as is

>Is alienation due to capitalist economic exploitation and consumer culture, or the loss of traditional norms and cohesive belief systems in modernity?
Marx didn't use the term alienation in a psychological manner (even if when he's talking about it he's being a little bit cheeky and can be alluding to the psychological implications of alienation), he was simply talking about the actual legal sale and alienation of individual activity. Alienation is all about control. If you have to alienate a portion of your time to the control of someone else you don't really control your daily activity.
Traditional societies gave an assigned role to individuals to play simplifying things compared to capitalism where everything is more fluid and roles are subject to market forces but they definitely were not characterized by individual autonomy. Those that want to reconstruct traditional societies today just suffer from a form of infantilism, they want to return to a safe childhood because they are afraid of what it means to actually grow up.

>It's dangerous to combine these two concepts together, capitalism merely refers to the mode of distribution of resources, exploitation and consumerism are simply the manifestation of cultural attitudes, but exploitation doesn't mean anything anymore unless you're talking about slavery. No one is truly exploited in a capitalist economy without their consent, unconscious or otherwise
Firstly, capitalism refers to the emergence of the relationship of waged labour as the predominate relation of production of commodities. The mode of production, not distribution, is what characterizes capitalism as unique. "Resources" were being distributed by commercial means already in antiquity thousands of years ago.
Second, exploitation doesn't require a "consumer culture" obviously in the senses he's using the term. Slave and feudal societies didn't require a mass of "consumers" but they did have ruling elites that engaged in forms of conspicuous consumption which was central to the social arrangement e.g. instead of cheap electronic gadgets they build giant useless pyramids.
Third, exploitation is a structural feature of all social formations that have existed. The fact that people today have to formally consent to their own self-alienation doesn't mean exploitation doesn't exist but that the social ideology has reached a point where explicit formal domination is no longer socially acceptable [largly due to the fact slavery is a rather inefficient form of exploitation economically speaking].

Capitalist economic exploitation and consumer culture directly led to the loss of traditional norms and cohesive belief systems in modernity

Git gud kid

>mental illnesses such as depression

Nice meme

>exploitation is a structural feature of all social formations that have existed

So then it can't be isolated as the cause of alienation in modern society.

>that engaged in forms of conspicuous consumption which was central to the social arrangement

So there weren't commercial forces in play in those cases

do you think it's healthy do be depressed?

>So then it can't be isolated as the cause of alienation in modern society.
I don't see why not... unless you think, like OP seems to presume, that alienation didn't exist in pre-modern societies. Alienation has been a social phenomena since agriculture was invented at least.

>So there weren't commercial forces in play in those cases
Conspicuous consumption doesn't require commerce, you can extract a surplus product from a population in many different ways.