Materialism rules young peoples life. Do you know what materialism is?

Materialism involves the focus on material "things" as opposed to that which is spiritual or intellectual in nature. We live in a world surrounded by and composed of matter with more luxury and branded. By this why we become more distracted from spiritual or intellectual pursuits by material possessions, but this is frequently where problems occur. We can become obsessed by a desire to obtain them, or simply frustrated by the need to maintain them. This problem cause us to doubt our decision: What makes a person be materialistic?Are material things really more important than anything else? Is material success the highest goal? Nowadays, many people are influenced themselves towards materialism world. As we leaf through the newspapers, we often read about teenagers problems here and there. What makes them to be affected like this? There are many reasons that are being identified. Firstly, I would say materialism are caused by peer pressure. Peer pressure means influence into social life by others to an individual. This encourages a person to change his or her attitude, behaviour, and values. This is one of very common problem for teenagers. For example, groups of peers friends may force or influence their friends to get into taking drugs, smoking and buying unwanted items which they dont really need it. This also make the teens more absorbed into different community or groups and spending less time for their family and religion matter. Secondly, this problem occur are because of the irresponsibility parents who have to guide them with love and kind are not there for them when they needed. According to Levine, (1984) said that Having children makes you no more a parent than having a piano makes you a pianist. Parents should be the role model who shows guides, hospitality, generosity, honesty and religion education to their children. But, are todays materialistic parents are doing this to their children? Are they expressing their unconditional love for their children? Certainly the answer is no. Parents are pampering their children too much from young and sometimes spending more than they effort. They think money can give them everything. This cause the children to be more free and use the money to buy luxury products or use in wrong path way. The teenagers like to buying the latest hand phone at market which really are they really no need for them at this age or buy alcoholic drinks and so on.

Moreover, media also are one of the main factors which cause youth to be influenced. When we talk about media, media is huge business to produce advertisement, entertainment information and so on. The sources of medias are movies, music, newspaper, magazines and so on. Under this concept we can link the relationship between the fashion and movies. Youth are influenced by celebrities, pop- culture and so on. In a similar vein, fashion makes them to forget our culture and our native. For example, the youths only want to wear branded clothes only or the clothes which are popular found in the fashion industry. Other than clothes, todays youth also was influence into this body piercing style. Body piercing, where this practice has gone away beyond the traditional pierced ear. Navels, eyebrows, tongue, private areas of the body are also worn by teens. If we go through the teenagers spending statics, they reduced their savings, but their spending still continued to progress at a rapid rate (Frank, Robert, 2004). According to Bank Negara Malaysia in 2005, the consumer income shows 5% to 6% only. Now Malaysias spend more on garbage bags for trash than 90 of the worlds 210 countries spend for everything. We have also miraculously doubled the number of shopping malls as high schools. For example, one in five families owned three or more cars and more than two hand phones. Besides that, invasive marketing is also linked to this topic. According to Consumer Reports magazine, "young children have difficulty distinguishing between advertising and reality in ads, and ads can distort their view of the world." Normally, the consumer would influence by the proliferation information about the products and services. Sometimes consumers desire to achieve or maintain a certain lifestyle or image results in a purchasing pattern that they purchase more than they need or affordability. Did marketing create these impacts? Yes, clearly we can see appeals exist that cause people to buy more than they need or their affordability. Unsolicited offers of credit cards with high limits or high interest rates, advertising appeals touting the psychological benefits of conspicuous consumption, and promotions that seek to stimulate unrecognized needs are often cited as examples of these excesses. Furthermore, lack of morality or moral values in teenager also cause this problem. We hear a lot of cases like students sell themselves self to sugar daddys for money in order and to live a luxury life, styling, pickpocket and so on. Why does this happen? Most of these children are emotionally unbalanced and have low selfconfidence and wanted to live in a comfort zone. These children are also having low self-esteem and confidence. Lack of morality are indirectly influence the character of a person. Normally, these children with the characters mentioned will not listen to their parents, very stubborn, easily be influenced and so on like the old saying goes: spare the rod, spoil the child.

In addition, materialism rules the youth also because of social status problem. In todays society, status is the biggest problem among the community. What does social status means? According to wikipedia articles, social status means the honor or prestige attached to one's position in society. Other than that, it also means simply a rank or position that one holds in a group, for example son or daughter, playmate, pupil, radical, militant etc. Therefore, people gain these different positions to a specific group as they go along in life but they still remain with only one status with various positions. Persons with high social standings would be considered "popular", but however normally they condemn status by occupation also. If this problems rules what would happen in future? How we would achieve our vision 2020 by our teenagers who are the next leader of country? Materialism cause a negating thought, feeling, human will, and faith. In a more subtle course, materialism promotes the idolatry of possessions or material wealth. Possessions are believed to fill all human needs and characterize quality of life. For a godless society, the philosophy of materialism may seem plausible. However, if societies have any spiritual belief, whether it is in Buddhism, Hinduism, Judaism, and Christianity, or Allah, materialism does not stand. But todays society is becomeing secular and humanistic in nature. Humanism deny any spiritual nature of mankind. Man has set himself and his material desires.

On the other hand, this problem also causes social problems and increased crime rate is largely because the materialistic and consumerist attitude of our society. Parents would be more aggressive to find wealth and become more wealthy by forgetting or neglecting their roles to their children. In fact, the social class system that we have in Malaysia has led many people to live in a fake and pretentious environment where their main preoccupation is to keep up with the Joneses. This materialistic attitude leads to selfishness and self-centeredness. By this attitude may lead decline in moral values among the teenagers and become rather selfish, rude and highly materialistic. Indirectly, this cultivate social bonds lead the children to become deviants or criminals. The materialistic and consumerist mentality will make society become even greedier and more self-centered. The status society would make a big gap between the rich and poor as well as things will be getting more expensive to feed the materialistic mentality.

However, is it justified to point the finger of blame on our teenagers for the social problems? Is it really a fact that the pillars of our future society could no longer be relied on? As a youth myself, instead of considering young people as a social problem, I would regard young people as a mirror reflecting our social problems. We all share the responsibility of the social problems created by the young people. From the analysis of the underlying reasons of the youth problems, it is reasonable to the family sector, the social sector, as well as the youth themselves overcome these problems. For instance, for the families, parents could try to strike a balance between work and family life and establish better relationships with their children. This could be done through simple means like watching TV with the youth or just by buying a snack for their children when they are studying. Parents should understand that home is where the heart is. In order to uphold the pillars of our future, the concerted effort of the family, society and the juvenile is needed. Let's cooperate and strive to make young people our social pride instead of accusing them as a social problem! Finally, by this research I have get to know what is the material objects often serve functional roles and are necessary in our daily lives. This is why I have come to believe that materialism has become more of a way of life for people in todays society.

Reference:
Barnett, Tim, Bass, Ken, Brown, Frederick, and Hebert, J. (1998). "Ethical Ideology and the Ethical Judgments of Marketing Professionals." Journal of Business Ethics May: 715-723. Retrieved on 2010-03-24 Bone, Paula F., and Corey, Robert J. (1998). "Moral Reflections in Marketing." Journal of marketing Fall: 104-114. retrived on 19 March 2010. Self-Regulatory Guidelines for Children's Advertising. (1997). Children's Advertising Review Unit of the Council of Better Business Bureaus. http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/15/45.text.html. retrieved on 20 March 2010 http://www.enotes.com/business-finance-encyclopedia/ethics-marketing retrieved on 20 March 2010 http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2006/4/12/focus/13924597&sec=focus . retrieved on 20 March 2010 http://www.media-awareness.ca/english/parents/marketing/issues_kids_marketing.cfm, retrieved on 20 March 2010 http://www.allaboutphilosophy.org/materialism.htm retrieved on 20 March 2010 http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-peer-pressure.htm retrieved on 20 March 2010 http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2006/4/12/focus/13924597&sec=focus Wednesday April 12, 2006, retrieved on 20 March 2010 http://www.consumerreports.org/cro/index.htm retrievd on 21 March 2010 Avoid injury on (or near) exercise equipment; Consumer Reports magazines on February 2010 retrived on 21 March 2010 http://www.media-awareness.ca/english/parents/marketing/issues_kids_marketing.cfm, retrieved on 20 March 2010 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_status, Articles with unsourced statements from February 2007 retieved on 20 March 2010.

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