9 Ways to Protect Kids from Consumerism and Why It's Important
Posted by Tara Button
“But Mum, I need it! I NEED IT! Everyone else has one.”
This familiar call of the young human to its parent is heard universally in Westernised culture. It’s a distress call.
We are programmed to want social acceptance. It’s not that we simply want to be accepted but that we feel we need to be accepted. In ancient times, if you were rejected by your tribe, you starved or died. No wonder this is a powerful driver for us. In our current consumerist society, and especially as young people, social acceptance and material things have become intimately linked.
Advertisers use this knowledge to create trends and fads, but now more than ever they are targeting the young. Companies have wised up to how much they can make by turning our children into consumers. When I was a baby, companies spent just £100 million on advertising to kids globally, now it’s £17 billion. Furthermore, brands will give out free goods to pregnant mothers so that their brand gets in front of newborn eyes first. But is materialism, essentially focusing on what stuff we have, so bad?
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