ABSTRACT
This chapter explores how and why the people deflect concern about advertising and consumption onto children and teens, as well as the relationship between consumption and social problems more generally. Complaints about children's consumption reflect ambivalence about our consumer-driven culture. Materialism is an issue that has real environmental effects, but by only focusing on children's and teen's materialism, the people do little to address what problems hyperconsumption might cause. In contrast to complaints that today's children are excessively materialistic as the result of advertising, the chapter considers the social and economic factors that create the view that having more stuff is both personally fulfilling and socially advantageous. Although blaming advertisers for children's materialism seems to shift the responsibility a bit, advertising alone does not create our culture—and social structure—that encourages us all to want more than the people have materially.
