Children Don’t Follow the Rules of Scrapbooking

Each Wednesday, I usually write a post from my dissertation.

Industry workers believe that the reason they had few scrapbookers who are not adults is because children and teenagers are not scrapbooking “in the safe way” (i.e., following the “rules” by using archival materials) yet. It could be that children and teenagers simply do not have the economic resources to scrapbook using supplies from a specialized retailer and instead rely on obtaining their materials as birthday gifts or as an extra purchase from Wal-Mart® while their parents shop for necessities. My sample only includes adults, reflecting the lack of youth who shop at specialized scrapbook stores. Younger scrapbookers are also not in my sample because it could be that very few young people are actually scrapbooking. Other scholars note that as people age, they use objects to demonstrate their social history (Wallendorf and Arnould 1988). Though unlikely, it could be that younger people simply are not scrapbooking because of their much shorter social history compared to adults.

What do you think? Are children and teenagers scrapbooking? Are they scrapbooking in the “safe way”? Does their lack of visibilty reflect lack of financial resources to put towards scrapbooking? 

References:

Wallendorf, Melanie and Eric J. Arnould. 1988. “ ‘My Favorite Things’: A Cross-Cultural Inquiry into Object Attachment, Possessiveness, and Social Linkage.” Journal of Consumer Research 14(4):531-47.