Please help me check my expressions and grammar in this essay. Do you think that I'm a bit off topic?
"Teenagers nowadays have adopted a consumerist lifestyle."
What is your opinion about the above statement?
Stacey, a seventeen-year-old Vietnamese student, proudly walked out of her high school front gate in her $70 Esprit tee-shirt and a $150 pair of Levi's jeans. She fished for her hand-phone inside the $299 Guess leather bag and called for a taxi; she was in a hurry to join her friends in a concert, just about ten-minute walking from her school.
In a country where average annual income is around $600, Stacey's outfit could have fed a three-people family for a year. As shocking as it may seem, Stacey is not the odd one in the crowd. She belongs to a group of privileged teenagers, who, thanks to the rapid improvement in living standards, have a lot more money to spend, and thus conveniently choose to indulge themselves in a consumerist lifestyle.
Nowadays, teenagers seem to be wavering towards a consumerist lifestyle due to many reasons other than having more money to spend. Their life now is inundated with a wide variety of media. With unlimited access to the Internet, television and foreign magazines, teenagers are more exposed to Western lifestyle than ever; and they adapt to changing trends as fast as a chameleon. It is no longer rare to see teenage girls walking along the streets in extravagant clothes like a human collage of magazine cut-outs. The $1,500 sweet-sixteen birthday party in MTV style in a five-stared hotel that Sarah, a student from a middle-class Singaporean family, had insisted on having does not seem anymore ostentatious. The media has too much influence on them; teenagers now look up to the shallow luxury of celebrities featured through various means of media as the dream life they yearn to live.
What's more, teenagers now desperately desire a sense of belonging within their contemporaries. Honestly, in this materialistic world, how many teenagers would choose to live a bland, frugal life to be called 'a freak' in the student population? Instead, they choose to go with the flow. When a boy in your class has a new X-box game player, you beg your parents to buy for you. When a girl dazzles the whole school with her new silver bracelet, how could you lose out by not having one? This is the attitude many teenagers are following; their world turns out to be a mere race for popularity, a meaningless competition for a brief moment of spotlight within their contemporaries.
Eventually, teenagers should realise that life is not a bed of roses; one day they will have to get out of their selfish, short-sighted shell and live for the community. When Sarah realises that instead of spending excessive money on the birthday party, she could have saved up for college, when Stacey understands that she could have used her money to donate for the victims of the recent cyclone in Myanmar, it will be a vital turning-point in their life. However, that day is still far to come. Now, these consumerist teenagers are solely eager to enjoy their self-centred life, obviously oblivious to their future as well as the suffering of others.
With unlimited access to the Internet, television, and foreign magazines, teenagers are more exposed to Western lifestyle than ever; and they adapt to changing trends as fast as a chameleon.
The $1,500 sweet-sixteen MTV-style birthday party in a five-stared hotel that Sarah, a student from a middle-class Singaporean family, had insisted on having does not seem anymore ostentatious.
Honestly, in this materialistic world, how many teenagers would choose to live a bland, frugal life to be called a " freak" in the student population?
Not very much this time! Good job!
You are welcome!
I do think your essay is relevant to the topic; you answer the prompt with sound examples. The only thing that could help your arguments become more solid is to find some kind of research that supports your assertions. For example, where did you find the figures about how much the average family makes? That would be a good opportunity, and needs to be cited.
