Materialism In Rebekah Nathan's Taking My Parents To College

Technology like any other resource has its limitations. Individuals, such as college students are one of the main reasons for materialism. A problem with society that has lingered for years is the distinction people cannot make between a need and a want. Now, in the twenty first century, many items are considered a need but weren’t before and that is because as society keeps evolving, people only worry about the latest and greatest thing. The American society is misplacing values into materialistic items and no longer in family traditions or human interactions. In the chapter , “Community and Diversity”, from Rebekah Nathan’s book, she discusses the concept of materialism and the evolvement of technology and how people all have their own devices and no longer need to share with others. She displays throughout her text of the impacts of materialism. “Small Change” by Malcolm Gladwell starts off by discussing the influence that social media has on activism in modern
In “Taking My Parents to College” by Jennine Capo Crucet, discusses a first generation college student. The issues and dilemma a student overcomes who has immigrant parents and is from a different culture. To some extent, Gladwell and Crucet both use Nathan’s concept of materialism in their texts. They do not clearly state it, but throughout their texts, it is implied. Nathan, Gladwell, and Crucet in some form all agree on the negative impacts created by technology and materialism.
Technology is replacing the human interactions; as society evolves, less people interact on a daily basis because communicating over a phone whether it’s via text, email, or phone call is what almost everyone does now. Nathan reports, “Interviews with a few students who were in the lounges during my observations revealed that the majority came there to ‘get away’-from a gathering in their room… the