Juliet Schor, a sociology professor at Boston College has written a book called Born to Buy : The Commercialized Child and the New Consumer Culture.
Schor’s research found that children who are label-conscious and materialistic tend to fight and argue with parents. “Higher levels of consumer involvement result in worse relationships with parents,” says Schor.
In another article on Parents Action for Children, Schor points out one possible reason for this conflict – the antiadultism of commercials. “There is a standard message in the consumer culture that kids are cool and adults are not.”
In the U.S., kids see about 40,000 commercial messages a year, and corporations spend 5 billion dollars each year to influence our kids to buy their products. What is even more surprising is the amount of influence kids have on our buying decisions. In 2004,children influenced $330 billion in adult purchases.
