Homepage
Forum
Drivers
HMM
MTM
Feed
I'm 24, I grew up in relatively affluent suburbia, and all I can say is WTF?! Perhaps I shouldn't be surprised, considering that kids in my day pushed their parents to spend $80 on a pair of Nike Air 180 sneakers, but this crass materialism is getting out of hand. When I was a teenager it never even crossed my mind to demand expensive things from my parents.Although parents have long struggled with their teenagers' desire to own the newest, coolest stuff, these days the battle has reached a new dimension. While teenagers once coveted $100 sneakers and jeans (arguably necessities because, after all, they are clothes), the must-have items now - iPods, cellphones with cameras, and portable DVD players - are high-tech, constantly in need of upgrade and can cost up to $500 each. These items, which teenagers say they must have to maintain their place in the social pecking order, are increasingly out of reach for most high school students, who are less likely these days to hold part-time jobs. Researchers who study child behavior call this pressure "nag factor" or "pester power," and often use it to describe how young children, in whom advertising has planted a desire for junk food or toys, lobby their parents. Now the same pestering is reaching a fever pitch among teenagers, who crave an ever-expanding collection of high-tech items they can't possibly afford....
I admit that I like having devices, but only if they are useful. I have a nice compact cell phone (basic model that came with plan, no camera or other gadgets), but no PDA/Smartphone/Blackberry. I have an iPod that I got for free, but no portable DVD player.
Maybe I never understood this consumerism business. I just don't understand gadgets as fashion accessories. It makes me shudder to think that laptop computers and cell phones are now in the same category as gucci handbags and designer jeans.
I have an iPod, but only because I got it free from a database service I use. I don't think I'd ever pay for one, or ask anyone to get me one as a gift.IT is no secret that Apple's sleek iPod, costing $99 to $449, has become, to the American teenager, a de rigueur fashion item, not just a handy gadget.
"The iPod blew up the category," said Sharon Lee, a founder of Look-Look Inc., a company in Hollywood that tracks teenage consumer behavior. Not only did Apple's MP3 player "open a category that just didn't exist before," she said; it changed the way teenagers thought about gadgetry.
Am I the only one who thinks that the consumer society may be getting out of hand? I just wonder why people buy things for the sake of buying them, instead of buying things for their utility.
The rest of the article is through the link, but if you don't want to register (free), you can find an account through http://www.bugmenot.com/.
) and I had a high maintenance girlfriend I'm happy to no longer have 
.
I used to have an iSeries 1300 in Grade 5, but finally, after 4 and a half years of heavy use, the motherboard just died. 
So, I just went to apply for a office job in the summer and just managed to collect 4300 dollars to get a T41p (I soon exchanged it for a X40; didn't need the extra firepower). I've never understood why kids beg parents to buy something for them, when they could just work for it (it also helps teens to understand that money just doesn't come from a tree; they have to work for it!) 
, and thinking that I'm one of those D students, I'm in fact an A+ student, and keeping my extracurriculars up! But I guess it's too early to tell, as I'm only 14.
