"The iPod blew up the category," said Sharon Lee , a founder of Look-Look Inc, a company in Hollywood that tracks teenage consumer behavior. Not only did Apple's MP3 player "open a category that just didn't exist before," she said; it changed the way teenagers thought about gadgetry.
But the iPod is not the only object of great desire.
"In the last couple of years, there seems to be a shift in badge items," said Michael Wood, a vice president at Teenage Research Unlimited in Northbrook, Illinois, which tracks youth buying patterns for more than 150 companies. "Whereas in the past it was an expensive pair of shoes or jeans -- something on the fashion side -- today the excitement and buzz is really around technology."
Tina Wells, who founded Buzz Marketing Group, another youth market researcher, based in New York, said the shift in priorities was particularly evident when she polled teenagers about what they coveted as gifts during the last holiday season. In 2003, Wells said, "it was all fashion."
"Everyone wanted a gift certificate to the Gap," she said. Last year, however, 63 percent listed a tech item as their gift of choice.
Three-quarters of teenagers between 15 and 17 now have mobile phones, up from 57 percent last year, according to the Roper Youth Report, an annual poll. Parents pay for 74 percent of the wireless plans in question, according to another survey, by the NOP World mKids Study, perhaps reflecting the fact that many parents see cell phones as a practical and safety item.
"Pretty much everybody has a cell phone, and iPods, probably one out of three people," said Greg Becker, 15, of Owings Mills, Maryland.
"It's huge. I get on my bus in the morning, everybody is listening to little white earbuds. Last year it was only a couple of kids. For guys, having an Xbox or a PS2, all the guys have those. Off the top of my head I can think of one person who doesn't," he said.
"Kids are very good, and relentless, at getting what they want, from the day they're born," said Susan Beacham, a parent of two girls, 13 and 11, in Lake Bluff, Illinois, and a founder of Money Savvy Generation, a group that coaches parents and children in fiscal responsibility.
"The pester power comes with them saying: `Mom, Madeline has one, so does Mira. Every time I want to call you, I have to borrow theirs,'" Beacham said. "It comes in the form of questioning your parenting. `Why wouldn't you keep us safe?' Then it goes to the iPod. `I've earned it, I excel in school, in excel in sports, why wouldn't you give it to me?"'
Last Christmas her 13-year-old pleaded that an iPod Mini was "a piece of the uniform," and Beacham told her she could have one as her one gift, instead of several smaller ones. But when her 11-year-old also wanted one, she was told she had to wait another year.
"For the parent, you're faced with the pressure but you do not have to do it," she said. "Your child will truly survive."
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