In Forbes article Peer Pressure, Keeping Up With the Joneses’ Teenagers, Neil Godfrey writes, “Teens are all too capable of reinforcing each other’s financial misconceptions. And, where financial misconceptions flourish, that’s where there’s fertile ground for all kinds of mini money disasters. I might be understating “mini” because sometimes they become major financial disasters.”
One of the bad habits he points out is letting friends influence purchases, and a desire to be cool dictating what money is spent on. Godfrey suggests that informing teens that advertisers invest millions to study and manipulate them may make a difference. "No one likes to be manipulated, and teenagers, with their instinctive distrust of phoniness, least of all. Encourage a healthy skepticism in your teens."