Pam has just finished chatting with a friend on the latest model intelligent cellular phone. She keys in an MMS to her date while catching a cab to the newest shopping centre.

She plugs in chic-looking earphones to get her favourite hip-hop tunes on her newest version MP3. As the taxi battles the downtown gridlock, Pam flips open the mobile to check out video clips taken with friends at a party last weekend.

How young people spend has been the subject of a large and ambitious survey called Child Watch, conducted by the Thailand Research Fund's Ramajitti Institute at Chulalongkorn University. The researchers set out to learn more about behaviour and spending habits by surveying 150,000 young people in all 76 provinces nationwide.Of the total respondents, the majority were high school and university students while the remaining 35,000 were at the junior high school level. About 2,000 respondents were picked per province.

Sixty-four percent of all respondents owned mobile phones, with Bangkok (78%) topping the table and the Northeast (57%) at the bottom. Thirty-four percent had personal computers, led by Bangkok (46%) with the Northeast last (27%). Eleven percent owned digital cameras. Teenagers with cars totalled 9%, led by the Central region at 14% while in the South ownership was 7%.

So what do these teens do with their free time? The survey showed that 86% were regular movie-goers, 72% liked killing time at shopping malls and 74% enjoyed eating fast food. Additionally, 55% said they liked to go out at night to entertainment venues.

Parents might be concerned, but not terribly surprised, that 30% of the respondents said they spent money on pornographic comics, 38% on porn video discs and 27% on naughty websites.

But while Thailand's teens may be enthusiastic consumers, their financial literacy and discipline are quite low, according to Acharn Amornwich Nakornthap, the director of the Ramajitti Institute.

"This is a clear outcome of a lack of recognising the 'value of money' among teens, and so they don't have a clue about how to spend it wisely," says Mr Amornwich, who is also a lecturer in Education for Social Development.

According to the survey, 35% of all respondents were working part-time and earning an average of 1,470 baht extra per month. The amount in Bangkok was 2,780 baht while in the northern region it was the lowest at 570 baht a month. The top jobs are working in the family business, on the school campus or as waiters and waitresses at restaurants.

Nevertheless, part of the motive for getting jobs at an early age is to meet rising expenses for luxury items that existing monthly income can no longer cover.

Mr Amornwich expressed concern about some of the findings, saying that teens need more help with financial education, which could come from their families, schools, businesses or through government awareness campaigns.

"It is essential to encourage them to start working and earning money on their own," he said. "This is considered a very efficient short-cut to teaching them about the value of money. They will quickly realise it when they realise how hard it is to earn every single baht."

And while schools could do more to increase the availability of financial knowledge on their curricula, educators may be fighting an uphill battle in the face of a culture of extreme consumerism and materialism. As long as businesses continue to bombard young people with messages to buy, the temptation to spend _ or to overspend _ will remain strong.

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