The rise of materialism is one of the worst social media effects We have seen a lot of advertisements in the digital world, if we address them specifically then we come to know that social media apps and websites are the most targeted platforms for spreading advertising stuff no time ever before.
If anyone thinks, why is it so? These are platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Line, Vine, WhatsApp, and many others on which advertising has spread regularly. We often see advertisements regarding products such as clothes, tech gadgets, shoes, cosmetic products, and plenty of others.
People of all ages are influenced by social media websites and social IM apps, so business companies target these platforms and pay heavily to the owners of social media for the advertisement of their particular products.
When people see these advertisements they tend to purchase luxury products at any cost. Mostly young generation is the most effective community through these advertisements.
So, resultantly youngsters do scrolling, trolling, and your name on social apps and websites too to buy the products that are advertised on social media platforms. So, how youngsters are increasing their expenses without realizing adopting a materialistic approach?
According to Researchers of San Diago State University:
In the current scenario, a question has arisen that today’s youth is more materialistic and less motivated as compared to the past generations. Finally, psychology professor Jean M. Twenge and co-author professor of psychology at Knox College Tim Kasserhaves answered the question.
“Twenge and Kasser stated that there is an increasing gap for today’s youngsters between materialism and less desire to work harder”. “If we compare previous generations with the current high school graduates are more likely to want the huge amount of money but less willingly to put their efforts in hard work to earn material things, Twenge stated in his book “Generations Me”.
Professors of psychology “Twenge” and Kesser have driven their views based on the national survey conducted 355,000 US high school seniors conducted since 1976 up to 2007. The survey was based on three generations which focused on the importance of having a huge amount of money and material goods and a tendency of doing hard work.
The Fantasy Gap:
- While comparing the 70’s youth with the current high school students are more materialistic, almost 62% of students had their view that it is important to have a huge amount of money. Only 48% had the same belief as the 70’s youth had.
- The tendency to do hard work, 39% of the current youth admitted that they did not want to do hard work.
- The researchers also stated that the youth became more materialistic when advertising spending made up a greater percentage.
- Advertising is playing a crucial role in the development of youth materialism, Twenge stated.
- According to” Kasser”, Materialism is important for today’s youth because of makes it he priority to get honey and possessions which resultantly causes plenty of issues, including depression and anxiety.
So, it means that advertising in any form influences the minds of the people whether it is in the form of billboards, social media, print media, electronic media, or anywhere else.
There are Following Factors Which Lead Younger Generation to be a Materialistic
Smartphones:
Since technology has developed smartphones, the whole of humanity has become dependent on smartphone tech gadgets. Now at the moment, even young kids and teens don’t want to go to school without a cell phone.
Most kids and young teens force their parents to buy them the latest smartphone with every passing year. Parents have to work hard to buy their young kids and teens smartphones. When young kids see a specifications phone in their fellow’s hands the next day they ask their parents to buy them too without realizing how costly it may be.
Use of social Media:
Most youngsters have their smartphones and accounts the social media platforms such as WhatsApp, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Tinder, and many others. Youngsters share their photos and videos wearing luxury clothes, girls mostly share their pictures of shopping in malls along with the captions and advertisements of the costly cosmetic products. Then the social media users who even don’t afford these products have an urge to get these luxury things.
Advertisement:
Advertisements in any form, whether it is on social media in the form of digital marketing, electronic media in the form of commercials, or print media in the form of magazines signboards, and billboards have played a huge impact on the human mind. So deceptive advertisement is the largest factor making the young generation materialistic.
How to Prevent Materialistic Approach Among Youngsters?
The first and the last efforts parents need to perform to eliminate the materialistic approach in their young teenagers. Parents have to keep in mind that, once the materialistic approach is adopted by their kids then it is very difficult to eliminate it. So parents have to look after their young teens at the time when their kids start understanding the value of anything. There are some following mentions tactics which can help parents to eradicate the materialism in youngsters.
- When you give money to your teenage child, it should be based on a regular allowance and also categorized into three forms spending, saving, and giving.
- Guide your young son or daughter about the finance, tell them how your income and expenses affect them and the whole family.
- Parents need to make the clear difference between wants and needs.
- Guide your kids on what drives them to spend money such as advertising on any platform such as social networking apps.
- Guide your kids to be role models, that is how you manage to make a good balance between needing, wanting, and spending money.
Parents can also use monitoring software such as TheOneSpy to view their activities on smartphones what they perform on social media such as what sort of photos and what sort of videos they view and share, what sort of websites they visit along with the accurate time stamp. Parents just need to install the TOS application on their teen’s device.
Then in case they are visiting fashion-based websites to see the latest fashion wear, you just need to monitor their internet activities of the spy app then you can see browsing history logs and you can view their saved bookmarks on the targeted device. If you think that social messaging apps and heavy advertisements on them may attract your child and he/she gets influenced by it, then parents just need to use the IM social media logs of the mobile parental monitoring app. Parents can also view all the selfies, photos, and videos shared by their kids with the help of view multimedia files monitoring app.
Conclusion
Social media is equally responsible for spreading a materialistic approach among youngsters. Parents need to adopt some methods to guide their young kids on what is necessary for them and what is just wasting time and money. TheOneSpy is the only monitoring application of its kind, which is handy for eradicating social problems among the youth; it aims to serve humanity to the fullest.
