One subject that is brought up frequently when discussing the ownership and use of credit cards is compulsive buying. Teenagers in high school, when their parents do not monitor spending or graduating high school and being far from home, in many cases, need to be educated about the perils of compulsive buying. First we must define compulsive buying behavior. Arpita Khare, the author of an article relating credit card use with compulsive buying behavior, defines it as “inappropriate consuming behavior that is excessive in nature and harms the concerned individual” (para 1). In other words, compulsive buying goes beyond just liking to shop a little bit too much. It actually hurts the individual in a profound way that can have long lasting effects. Compulsive buyers who have been asked not to shop may exhibit symptoms of withdrawal similar to those of quitting smoking (Grover, para 1). Many people still believe that an individual either is or is not a compulsive buyer. However, this is an overgeneralization based on personal assumptions that do not take into account more recent information. Recent studies have found that addictive behaviors, which include compulsive buying, develop in a process that does not necessarily start with a harmful behavior (Grover, para 2). Shopping can be fun and is a stress reliever to many people. Teenagers deal with a lot of stress from their lives as students and obtaining new items is fun and feels good. This in itself does not make a consumer a compulsive buyer and not until they take it a step further and cannot live without shopping does it become harmful. It is when the shopping consumes the person and they begin to crave the feeling that buying things gives them that there is a problem. For teenagers, this distinction can become quite blurred and it is very easy for them to turn a behavior that is not by itself harmful into one that is very addictive and hard to break. Compulsive buying can be extremely harmful to teenagers who own and use credit cards because of the ease with which they can be used. Instead of having to see the amount of cash that they are spending and being limited to what is in their wallet, these teenagers can keep spending and spending until eventually they reach the credit limit on their card. Compulsive buying when using a credit card leads to extremely high credit card debt that can be very difficult to pay off. With the proper education of the risks of compulsive buying, teenagers can utilize credit cards for their benefits without succumbing to this dangerous behavior.
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