Junior Manu Poggio was quick to get on the alo website as soon as the new limited edition Winter Frost color dropped and within one week, her new sweat-set was at the door and ready to be worn. She spent $209.30 for her new set but it’s OK because everyone on social media and at school has one these days – right?
Social media influence on teenagers to spend drastic amounts of money assists the economy and business rates and it is one of the best jobs to acquire at this time since social media influence is still on a rise. Businesses are able to quickly see what people are interested in and what trends are spreading rapidly, which gives them ideas for how to improve their businesses. From the journal of Fashion Marketing and Management, authors Isabel J. Grant and Stephen R. Graeme said, “Understanding the importance of the selected themes can help fashion retailers study their consumers based on the key dimensions reported in this research and ensure that the key communication factors identified, are considered prior to developing a campaign for this target group.”
New trends also allow people to be flexible with their styles allowing them to be creative and express themselves. As trends are rapidly changing, there is room for people to pick and choose the styles and trends they like best and express it. Teenagers’ interests in these new trends allows them to express their imagination, meaning they should be able to spend money on the clothes they wear since it is one of the best ways to show who they are. Jyoti Yadav, the author of the article How to Handle Teens’ Overspending on Clothes Without Stress or Arguments on a journal called Medium said, “Clothing allows teens to express personality, style and individuality. Wearing trendy outfits helps them feel confident and visible. Overspending often stems from this need for self-expression.”
Fashion fads are causing teenagers to spend way too much money and now that inflation is a prominent problem, it is busting everyone’s bank accounts. Inflation has caused clothing items and fashion businesses to raise their prices by 9% since 2020. Since the COVID-19 pandemic, inflation has been an ongoing issue and trends started rapidly changing not only causing teens to fall for every trend and buy a lot of new fashion related items, but also making all of these fashion related items way more expensive. Inflation is also a financial issue that teenagers need to be aware of going forward and if they aren’t educated about finance and smart spending, they can carry these bad habits with them as they get older. Junior student Adriana Colomo said, “Teenagers spending too much money on trends is not essential because it does not let them learn how to control money management. Also trends come and go a lot very fast, so it’s money going to waste.”
Although the rise of social media allows businesses to gather quick insight and grow their businesses, it also is quick to influence teens to spend too much money in a short period of time. It takes just a couple seconds after a social media influencer posts an item and for it to go out of stock within the same day. As people post new clothing, styles and accessories, people all around the world can see it, find it and buy it within a few minutes. Shopping and scrolling are her two favorite things besides taking photos. Photography teacher Afua Kyeremeh said, “When I was a teenager we would see an outfit in a magazine and spend weeks trying to find it and now we press three buttons and it’s at our front door.”
To stop this growing problem, schools can implement lessons that teach students and adolescents how to spend their money in a smart way and not on everything that is promoted on social media. For incoming or young teens, parents can restrict their social media pages from showing rapid trends. Although everything is on a small screen that everyone carries with them constantly, it definitely is challenging to restrict people from buying new clothes. However, it’s good to educate teenagers as much as possible.
