These were no ordinary panelists to the officials of clothing companies, food giants, media dot-coms and others attending the marketing conference. they were american teen-agers, articulating the consumer habits of a group projected to spend a staggering $155 billion this year. so they applauded the answers of these chicago-area high school students, laughed at every attempted joke and flooded them with questions for an hour. where do you buy things? what books do you like? what's your favorite band? do you prefer tv or the internet? what is the central idea of this passage? many people are interested in what teen-agers have to say. officials from clothing companies and others go to marketing conferences. companies want to learn about how teen-agers spend money. teen-agers spend billions of dollars a year.