Young people…are richer and better informed than they have ever been, in some countries, particularly in the developing world; over half the population is under 21 years of age. With the globalization of mass media, the style of consumerism associated with modern industrialized societies of the western world has spread all around the plant. Young people can thus be recognized as a unique all-important market in their own right (1998: 1). These markets aimed at how child consumption has transformed to further target children instead of attempting to get them to influence the purchasing power of their parents. These companies now put products that appeal to children in plain site. There are now objects on lower level shelves and advertisements …show more content…
Specifically in elementary school kids, what they consume influences their social ties to the other children in their school. Ruckenstein (2010) states: “Preschoolers make use of toys as important markers of belonging, including age and maturity; they tend to be very aware of what kinds of toys they should play with” (396). This emphasizes that children distinguishing themselves from others actively through commercial culture, whether toys, games or television programmes (2010:396). Consumer items become central vehicles for social belonging and are needed in order for peer groups to operate. There is a cycle of consumption that children need to keep up with in order to keep the social relations they have, and if they do not act of this they can be seen as outsiders. “Children are influenced by the toy fashion cycles, but they do not simply internalize the short-term cycle of the market. Instead, they use the cycle for cultural projects of their own, complicating relations between children and markets” (Ruckenstein 2010:395). Marten et Al. (2004) further explain that the ‘peer group pressure’ pushes children into the need to belong and be accepted so they use consumption to gain recognition in their social groups and to distinguish themselves from other groups of children (164). The non-desirable commodities might be seems as ‘old’, ‘boring’, ‘childish’ or ‘babyish’ or associated with social groups such as ‘geeks’ ”(Rukenstein 2010: 394). If children are looking to be in the ‘in crowd’ they need to keep up with consumption patterns that group is participating in. When looking at this issue through habitus and everyday life, “the logic of Bourdieusian accounts would suggest that children’s distinctions are class based. Alternatively, distinctions might relate more to interpretations of age, with ‘maturity’ or ‘childishness’ counting as bases for
Swimme, Brian. “How Do Our Kids Get So Caught Up in Consumerism”. The Human Experience: Who Am I?. 8th ed. Winthrop University: Rock Hill SC, 2012. 155-157. Print.
“Few public opinion polls exist concerning the burgeoning youth marketing industry. We therefore conducted an online survey of 978 U.S. residents in the Spring of 2004. Results suggest that a large majority of respondents believe: a) that the youth marketing industry is harmful to children and has questionable ethical practices: b) that the industry contributes to a variety of problems common in youth: c) that most of the marketing which takes place in schools is unacceptable: and d) that marketing directed at children under 8 years of age should be prohibited”, (Kasser and Linn).
Kids these days are constantly looking to get the next best thing, or act how the “popular” people would act. In the article “Commodifying Kids: The Forgotten Crisis,” Giroux talks about the affects the media market is having on children of today. The media is “brainwashing” kids into buying their products and catching them while they are young. The children of today are measuring their worth by the things they own or the way they act, which is largely due in part to the media market. While I do agree with Giroux on how the media market is to blame for the strong influence of children, I also think that the parents should share some of the blame for giving into their child’s desires and buying and encouraging them to get the top products.
Juliet B. Schor, a professor of sociology at Boston College, is the author of Selling to Children: The Marketing of Cool and many other books on the topic of American Consumption. Schor is a professor of sociology at Boston College. In this article, Selling to Children: The Marketing of Cool, Schor talks about what cool is and how it has affected the culture of advertising and ideals. From Schor’s writing we can try to understand why she wrote about this topic and how she feels about the methods of advertising used for kids, providing facts for each of her main statements.
One of the most significant reasons about consumerism is, it leads to people living a lonely lifestyle. Initially, there is numerous scientific evidence which proves the issue why materialism makes people live lonely. First of all, there was research about that, which has examined connection between dynamics of materialism and loneliness by some scientist. The result is that materialism contributes to lonely lifestyle; furthermore, it differs among particular subtypes of materialism(PIETERS,2013). For example, valuable possessions for humans like ipods, laptops, computer games have leading a loneliness, because they spare their times for them more than social activities like interaction with others or having fun outside. Therefore, people need to improve their communication skills for preventing loneliness. Secondly, in consume...
He argues that this perception fails to recognize that tastes are socially conditioned and that the objects of consumer choice reflect a symbolic hierarchy that is determined and maintained by the socially dominant in order to enforce their distinction from other classes of society. (Allen & Anderson, 1994). This concept has similarities with Veblen’s understanding of class and consumption. Veblen suggested that social status was signified through the possession, accumulation and exhibition of luxurious goods and status symbols which indicated one’s membership in an upper social class. (Oh, Park, & Samuel, 2012). Veblen believed that peoples major motivation for buying goods is not enjoy them, but for them to function as status symbols as people evaluate each other in terms of others. He also coined the term invidious distinction which explains how people try to make others envious. Standards of emulation are the standards that we measure ourselves against in terms of products. . The comparison of the achievements of a person and the achievements of his social reference group is a major force in creating desires and aspirations. The consumption of commodities signals what people actually are but also how they would like to be considered by others. (Noe & Elifson,
United Kingdom has been part of the European Union since 1993. EU is both a political and economic agreement between 28 European countries. The idea came after WWII, that when countries are trading with each other, then it is highly likely that war will be avoided. Since then, it has evolved to a single market with free trade and it is as if acting as one country.
“What do you call a consumer who wants to buy everything you have, doesn 't care what it costs and is less than five feet tall? A marketer 's dream? Nope. You call them kids.” (AdRelevance Intelligence Report, 2000). Nowadays, children (age 4-12) already have a sense of fashion and attitudes that we may not see in children back in 1980s-1990s. Based on the “Consuming Kids” (2008) and our daily experience we can see and learned that children tends to follows or try to imitate what they see, it can be from television, magazine, school, and sometimes what they see in the real life. In “Consuming Kids” documentary we learned that the total of money that children spend in a year is about $40 billion and the influence of the kids to adult spending
According to Rocker- Gladen, while attempting to teach her students about consumerism, one recurring comment students normally make about consumerism, it is their parents’ responsibility to monitor their exposure to consumerism. This alarming fact is that not every child has parents whom are actively involved in their child’s development. Turkle emphasized that by parents giving their kids cell phones this can lead them to developing a new state of dependence. Instead of the youth seeking their parent’s advice about their ideas and attitudes, they are more likely resort to their inexperienced peers. This is as a result of the “always on, always contented” communication culture that is being the...
How many of us really think about “Why we consume the way we do?” and “How do we constantly support the economic process of consumerism?” Some people might say that they need the all of the flashy electronic gadgets like phones, tablets, and hover boards or they must have those 3,000 designer jeans because they’re trending right now on social media. I asked myself these questions and I realized that I’d never really consciously thought about how Americans consume until now.
Marketers become rich by selling the idea of happiness to children; that life is all about buying and getting, and money is happiness. This ill treatment of children, by marketers, negatively affects social aspects of children. In more recent years, marketers have started to push more expensive, “branded” products to children. As Velmha La.Point states, “There’s a mantra in American society you are what you have, you are what you buy, you are what you own. The corollary of that, is and if you don’t have it, then you are a nobody”(Consuming Kids). This then leads to things such as depression or low self-esteem if ...
Today's young people are generally unresponsive to traditional brand marketing messages. Teens spent $12 billion dollars last year according to a recent study of Teen Marketing Trends. Teens not only use their money on small purchases such as music, clothes and food but also have the power to influence high-end purchases of their parents. Every year younger teens are being marketed because that they are the future teenagers and brand loyalty is an important thing to many companies. If you can get an older child hooked on a product, they’ll generally love it for life. These younger age demographics are being marketed to because more and more kids have increasing spending power and authority over what is purchased in their household.
“There are twelve billion dollars spent annually on ads directed at children” (Dittmann, 2004). These advertisements target young, impressionable minds, capture the attention of the child and imprint an ideal or message. While watching advertisements, a child develops a like or dislike for an activity or product. The strength of the desire is proportional to exposure. Desire creates action and action creates sales. I observed this principle with a sibling, my younger brother Eron. When a General Electric commercial came on television he, would turn and be mystified by the music and dancing of the actors. Around the age of eight, he expressed a very strong opinion that General Electric products are superior to other products. At this stage in his development, he did not have the cognitive ability to think abstractly to weigh all of the aspects associated with what makes a product of quality.
Across America in homes, schools, and businesses, sits advertisers' mass marketing tool, the television, usurping freedoms from children and their parents and changing American culture. Virtually an entire nation has surrendered itself wholesale to a medium for selling. Advertisers, within the constraints of the law, use their thirty-second commercials to target America's youth to be the decision-makers, convincing their parents to buy the advertised toys, foods, drinks, clothes, and other products. Inherent in this targeting, especially of the very young, are the advertisers; fostering the youth's loyalty to brands, creating among the children a loss of individuality and self-sufficiency, denying them the ability to explore and create but instead often encouraging poor health habits. The children demanding advertiser's products are influencing economic hardships in many families today. These children, targeted by advertisers, are so vulnerable to trickery, are so mentally and emotionally unable to understand reality because they lack the cognitive reasoning skills needed to be skeptical of advertisements. Children spend thousands of hours captivated by various advertising tactics and do not understand their subtleties.
Youth are not only the leaders of tomorrow, but also the partners of today. Young people are social actors of change and progress. They are a crucial segment of a nation’s development. Their contribution, therefore, is highly needed.