Are young adults too materialistic?

[estranged4life]

Being wealthy ranks as a priority for youths, recent surveys indicate.

The Associated Press

Chicago - Melissa Greenwood sees it every day at her high school - the hyper-focus on designer labels, the must-have trendy cell phones, the classmates driving SUV's.

New polls show the obsession with material things is growing - and that being rich is more important to today's young people than in the past.

UCLA's annual survey of college freshman, released last Friday, found nearly three-quarters of those surveyed in 2006 thought it was essential or very important to be "very well-off financially." That compares with 62.5 percent who said the same in 1980 and 42 percent in 1966, the first year the survey was done.

Another recent poll from the Pew Research Center found about 80 percent of 18- to 25-year-olds in this country see getting rich as a top life goal for their generation.

Young America's obsession with material things recently caused talk show host Oprah Winfrey to vent her frustrations, when aked why she chose to build a school in South Africa instead of this country.

"If you ask the kids what they want or need, they will say an iPod or some sneakers," Winfrey told Newsweek, referring to visits with students in inner-city school.

"In South Africa, they don't ask for money or toys. They ask for uniforms so they can go to school."

Saying no
Indeed, researchers say materialism is an obsession that cuts across socio-economic lines for American youth.

"Our kids have absorbed the cultural values of more, easy, fast and fun," says David Walsh, a psychologist who heads the National Institute on Media and the Family in Minneapolis. He's also the author of the new book, "NO: Why Kids - of All Ages - Need to Hear It and Ways Parents Can Say It."

As the title suggests, he believes parents have played an integral role in encouraging their children's materialism. His research found that, when adjusted for inflation, parents are spending 500 percent more on kids today than one generation earlier.


Disappointment looms
Some see the heightened expectations setting up inevitable dissappointment.

"There are a lot of young people hitting 25 who are making, say, $35,000 a year, who expected they'd be millionaires or at least making six figures," says psychologist Jean Twenge. They're also entering adulthood with more college loans and credit card debt. No wonder, Twenge says, we hear so many 20-somethings talking about the "quarter-life crisis."