Lifestyles & Consumption
Lecture Notes
Lecture 1: Introduction
Lifestyle → patterns of behaviours. There is a social component to it.
The way we view the consumption of sigarettes changed a lot.
- Before: Socially accepted / luxury / at party it would be rude to not have a cigarette disposer.
- Way of looking at smoking has shifted. Less acceptable. Smoke free campus.
➔ The way we view consumption is not static, it is evolving over time.
High brow culture→ term used to describe higher class / higher art form.
Historically→ high brow, larger head, more intelligent.
,Lecture 2: Consumption: Different Perspectives and Academic
Responsibilities
In book life cycle theory→ In lecture: Life course perspective.
,Think in life courses instead of blocks of years. Because when you think about consumption it’s not
useful to think in blocks of years, but rather think about life courses, so how our life’s actually evolve.
People these days get older(80-100), centuries ago people would usually reach the age of 50. So you
cannot compare age in that sense now, to ages ago.
Life course thinking: Not thinking about
your biological age but about the stage
of life you are actually in.
Adulthood is now not really determined by biological age anymore (in the Netherlands the biological
age for adulthood is 18). We now have this this transition phase mostly until adulthood, maybe until
their twenties or their late twenties even. That has been defined as ‘Emerging adulthood’.
This life course perspective gives room to think about different phases but also to add phases
depending on how our life’s actually evolves, on how our society evolves. So, it’s more social than
actually biological.
Age → not how old (years) someone is. But we look at these stages.
In these different stages of your life, people also have different attitudes towards and habits of
consumption, but also different ideas of what one should consume to belong to a different group, so
how do our consumption practices also evolve about our idea of belonging.
, Role of children has changed a lot throughout the years.
Tradition and part of industrial era: Children should go to work at quite a young age, give up some of
their money to support their parent, but also the idea that they would eventually go support their
parents when their parents would get older. Their role was quite financial and supporting of the
whole family.
Nowadays/Modern times: Children became more and more seen as priceless. Children are not only
financially interesting. Children should be protected and not be harmed. They have their own moral
value rather than an economic value.
➔ Child as consumer was born.
‘This is a bit black and white of course’
Child as consumer:
Example:
- Healthy baby food.
Sound good for your child.
It’s healthy.
- Games that help your
children in developing
themselves.
- Brand loyality: Nike
children clothing. Children
will recognize this
logo/brand. That is how
they are drawn into this
whole system of consumption.
Years ago it would be this very small item that was imporant, but we are now moving towards
children having Ipots, tablets, whatever kind of more expensive products that would make them fit
in.
Lecture Notes
Lecture 1: Introduction
Lifestyle → patterns of behaviours. There is a social component to it.
The way we view the consumption of sigarettes changed a lot.
- Before: Socially accepted / luxury / at party it would be rude to not have a cigarette disposer.
- Way of looking at smoking has shifted. Less acceptable. Smoke free campus.
➔ The way we view consumption is not static, it is evolving over time.
High brow culture→ term used to describe higher class / higher art form.
Historically→ high brow, larger head, more intelligent.
,Lecture 2: Consumption: Different Perspectives and Academic
Responsibilities
In book life cycle theory→ In lecture: Life course perspective.
,Think in life courses instead of blocks of years. Because when you think about consumption it’s not
useful to think in blocks of years, but rather think about life courses, so how our life’s actually evolve.
People these days get older(80-100), centuries ago people would usually reach the age of 50. So you
cannot compare age in that sense now, to ages ago.
Life course thinking: Not thinking about
your biological age but about the stage
of life you are actually in.
Adulthood is now not really determined by biological age anymore (in the Netherlands the biological
age for adulthood is 18). We now have this this transition phase mostly until adulthood, maybe until
their twenties or their late twenties even. That has been defined as ‘Emerging adulthood’.
This life course perspective gives room to think about different phases but also to add phases
depending on how our life’s actually evolves, on how our society evolves. So, it’s more social than
actually biological.
Age → not how old (years) someone is. But we look at these stages.
In these different stages of your life, people also have different attitudes towards and habits of
consumption, but also different ideas of what one should consume to belong to a different group, so
how do our consumption practices also evolve about our idea of belonging.
, Role of children has changed a lot throughout the years.
Tradition and part of industrial era: Children should go to work at quite a young age, give up some of
their money to support their parent, but also the idea that they would eventually go support their
parents when their parents would get older. Their role was quite financial and supporting of the
whole family.
Nowadays/Modern times: Children became more and more seen as priceless. Children are not only
financially interesting. Children should be protected and not be harmed. They have their own moral
value rather than an economic value.
➔ Child as consumer was born.
‘This is a bit black and white of course’
Child as consumer:
Example:
- Healthy baby food.
Sound good for your child.
It’s healthy.
- Games that help your
children in developing
themselves.
- Brand loyality: Nike
children clothing. Children
will recognize this
logo/brand. That is how
they are drawn into this
whole system of consumption.
Years ago it would be this very small item that was imporant, but we are now moving towards
children having Ipots, tablets, whatever kind of more expensive products that would make them fit
in.
