I want this, I need that, I can’t live without (insert item here).  Americans, especially teenagers, constantly worry about material things instead of the more hard pressing issues of society.  In modern day society, things such as a new purse or a new video game strikes Americans and teenagers alike as a necessity.  A very popular question is who is to blame? Parents? Celebrities? Many people can take the blame, but materialism is a growing problem in today’s society.

Materialism is growing in Americans alike, but teenagers have caught the bug worse then others.  Teenage girls between the ages of 13-18 in the modern world are consumed with how they look and what appearance they put forward.   Not every teenager is consumed with these everyday thoughts, but the percentage is growing.

Although the only people we can blame is ourselves, we also can give some of the blame to the way things are advertised and marketed to people everyday.  When walking in a store such as J. Crew, the first thing you will see is pictures of happy people on the beach or other lavish places.  The girls look skinny and have huge smiles plastered across their faces while giggling and flirting with cute boys.  Along with being in lavish places, they are covered head to toe in J. Crew.  The easy, breezy, carefree lifestyle seems to be one that can only be achieved by putting on the right pair of eighty dollar J. Crew shorts.  The price to have a name brand across your clothes is never too high to pay to stay in with the trend is what many people believe.

In our society today, we are constantly seeing multimillion dollar outfits on television shows and that celebrities and the wealthy wear in everyday life.  When we see how we could be living, we cannot stop thinking about those possibilities.  We constantly see things that we cannot afford, but the American culture tells us that looking glamorous is more important than anything else.

In a New York Times article, Carey Goldberg said, “In recent years, researchers have reported an ever-growing list of downsides to getting and spending – damage to relationships and self-esteem, a heightened risk of depression and anxiety, less time for what the research indicates truly makes people happy, like family, friendship and engaging work. And maybe even headaches.”

Today’s society has put the message in everyones minds that we cannot be happy if we are not spending money and getting the biggest and best new things.

In the NY Times article Diener said, “Materialism becomes a more difficult goal than many,because it is open-ended and goes on forever – we can always want more, which is usually not true of other goals such as friendship. With friends, we have them and enjoy them but usually are not taught that we keep needing more.

We believe in the long run, money will bring us lots of happiness for a long amount of time, but when the harsh reality comes out, we realize that money and material things can only satisfy that craving for a short amount of time.

The modern struggle with materialism brings out what Americans value.  The front we put forward is that we value materialistic things more than other aspects of life.  The more expensive a product is, the better the product must be.

Instead of focusing all on what people want and what people think, America should consider focusing more on how better we could use our money and what our money could be doing to help others in American and around the world.

Americans are the only ones who can cut their own spending.  People can choose where their money goes and how they wish to use it.  Americans are the only ones who can change our materialistic values.  There are places all over our world and right here in America where money could possibly be better spent. People around the world suffer from not having clean water, having no place to sleep, not being able to feed their children.

People could spend their money to help other countries along with out own instead of buying name brand items.

Skipping little things here and there can make a huge difference on out materialistic culture.  Skipping starbucks coffee and making home brewed coffee can save arround $780 a year according to www.consumer-action.org. By cutting out name brand beauty supplies and hair care and usuing the stores brand can save lots of money.  Instead of spending money on name brands people can give their money to organizations such as Education International,  Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nation, etc.  Spending money in different areas of peopels everyday lives can change America as a whole.