When the Daily Mail reported in an article that ‘children in the West are becoming increasingly depressed because they are too materialistic… ’ many were shocked as it was based on research findings. Twenge, a professor of psychology at San Diego State University and author of the book Generation Me, said, “Compared to previous generations, recent high school graduates are more likely to want lots of money and nice things, but less likely to say they’re willing to work hard to earn them.” How true is this statement?
Other researchers have voiced similar thoughts. They say that modern youth is more interested in making quick money. Earning money is not the issue here; making money by any means in the shortest time possible is. It appears to have started as early as the 1990s and in the 21st century it has reached a peak. A study of 3,55,000 school kids confirmed that they were looking for short term materialistic items and not willing to wait for long term benefits.
Further research showed that children who experienced unstable political periods (like civil war or recession) or whose parents were separated were the ones who wanted to earn fast money and did not believe in working hard. They were influenced greatly by advertisements. Twenge, the researcher, said, “It might explain the gap between materialism and the work ethic, as advertising rarely shows the work necessary to earn the money necessary to pay for the advertised product…. This study shows how the social environment shapes adolescents’ attitudes. When family life and economic conditions are unstable, youth turn to material things for comfort. And when our society funds large amounts of advertising, youth are more likely to believe that ‘the good life’ is ‘the goods life’….”
This only proves that we now live in a culture that upholds materialism and we continue this particular attitude by silently encouraging unhealthy habits in our children. They grow with the belief that life’s success and happiness lie in the accumulation of money. They compare themselves with their peers who live a flamboyant lifestyle, and crave to live a similar life, which results in the need to earn even more money.
Present day parents provide all those things that children want, as a result of which children do not learn to earn; rather they start demanding things. It is imperative that parents teach children to ‘earn’ what they want. They should expose children not to the glamour and glitz of the wealthy but to the callousness of real life; they should make their children aware of the fact that money is not a synonym for ‘life’ and that there are several other things that go to make up ‘life’.
If you are still not sure of the ill effects of being materialistic, then I suggest you read what C JoyBell C says:
‘The shame and the downfall of a modern materialistic society is her inability to treasure, care for, admire, adore, cherish, value, revere, respect, uphold, uplift, protect, shield, defend, safeguard, treasure and love her children. I praise all the cultures of this world that naturally harbor and actively manifest these instincts. If a nation or if a population of people fails to recognise the excellent value and distinction of the lives of her children and is defective enough to have lost the capability of expressing and acting upon these instincts then there is nothing that can save that nation or those people. The prosperity of people is not measured in banks, financial markets, economy and the death of its humanity is evident not through the loss of life but in the loss of love for its children.’