Materialism spikes in a generation
January 23, 2007

CHICAGO (AP) -- 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 sport utility vehicles.

"It bothers me because I would like to think I am the opposite," said Melissa, a 16-year-old high school junior from Arlington Heights, an affluent suburb of Chicago. She says she sometimes finds it difficult to avoid the urge to fit in.

"Let's face it," she said. "Honestly, what teenage girl doesn't want to look cute and have the latest accessories?"

Polls show that the obsession with material things is growing and that being rich is more important to young people today than in the past.

The University of California at Los Angeles released its annual survey of college freshman last week and found that 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 conducted. the rest