Materialism, child development and the Nintendo DS

It is easy to bemoan materialism -- the wanting and needing of more stuff -- and when adults see children exhibiting signs of it, they can't help but disapprove. Look at all these spoiled kids, the old folks cry, nagging for cell phones and iPods and the Nintendo DS. What a shame, the thinking goes, that they can't simply be happy with a swing in the backyard.

But what if a child's desire for stuff is rooted in something deeper? I just came across an article published six months ago in the Journal of Consumer Research that has made me wonder. The piece, written by Lan Nguyen Chaplin at the UIUC and Deborah Roedder John at the University of Minnesota, says that materialism can be explained by a child's sense of self-esteem. The lower the self-esteem, the more the kid wants stuff. Age and stage of child development play a big role too. In early adolescence -- those awful pimple-pocked years of middle school -- children want to see their peers look up to them. When they've got new stuff to show off, they get that hit of fame, shortlived though it may be.

Why am I dwelling on this at the moment? Because I'm in the middle of writing a chapter about mobile technology and children, and after interviewing nearly two dozen pre-teens this summer, it has become fascinating to see how they use their electronic devices (the Nintendo DS is a particular favorite) to broadcast their identities, cement their friendships and dig deeply into worlds of intrigue or performance (Pokemon, The Jonas Brothers) that they connect with emotionally.

What I hadn't quite grasped until read Chaplin and John's article, though, is how much their attachment to their electronic devices fits in a continuum of child development. As a grown-up who still admits to my own need for stuff, I can see where they are coming from.

Now if only someone would write an article helping me situate theories of child development within the thicket of Pokemon.