The consumer behavior of college students: An overview

Throughout the writing of this blog, I have observed many aspects of the consumer behavior of students living in the residence halls and of college students in general. Since this will be my last post, I would like to talk about an overview of what I have learned from all of these observations throughout the semester. My first major observation is that many college students feel entitled to the best of everything even though they are earning little to no money themselves. The current generation of college students have largely grown up in households in which their parents have spent time telling them that they are special and important instead of encouraging them to develop knowledge and a work ethic. This parenting strategy has led to a group of college students that think they deserve to be treated well, given straight As, and have all of their material wants and needs paid for with very little effort on their part; that is the way that they have grown up and they expect life to stay that way indefinitely.

This sense of entitlement has led college students to make many generally unintelligent consumer decisions on a routine basis, including but not limited to buying overly large TVs, spending a large amount of money on clothes, and spending more than they should at convenience stores just because they are located in the building in which the student is residing. Additionally, these college students make bad decisions on how to spend their time, constantly listening to music while working and "wasting time" playing silly games on their smart phones (which, ironically, were originally created to make people more efficient). Overall, I have not gotten a generally good picture of college students today from creating this blog. Most of the students that I have observed have a long way to go from their lazy, entitled selves if they want to someday become productive members of society. I'm sure that they will eventually improve, but it is depressing to see it take so long for the students of today to take responsibility for themselves and grow up.

Image credit: http://www.tumblr.com/tagged/lazy-college-senior?before=1331380064