Youth culture - the societal norms, values and unique behaviour within adolescents. Being linked to the ongoing development of modernization in society and with social media rapidly becoming an indispensable part of our lives, youth culture has a profound impact on our generation. In this article we will be delving into how exactly youth culture impacts not only adolescents but other aspects such as the economy on a global level as well.
Figure 1. “Highsnobiety and Lyst's 'Next 20' illustrated by Martin Major”
How was youth culture “formed”?
Before we explore how youth culture impacts our society, we must first understand how it came to be — as the idea of our youth being its own separate identity wasn't considered until the early 1960s. This was when the post war economic boom otherwise known as the “golden age of capitalism” not only led to countries having a general level of affluence, but also to see a drastic increase in birth rates. This linked adolescents to be more hedonistic consumers, which was a stark contrast compared to their adult counterparts who were more associated with utilitarian consumption resulting from the economic crisis during world war 2. This profiling prompted the marketing industry to turn their attention to adolescents at the time, leading to the creation of a lucrative youth market with significant economic power, which laid the foundations of youth culture as we see it today.
What impact does youth culture have on adolescents?
With the entire internet being at almost everyone's fingertips, youth culture has had an increasingly big impact on adolescents throughout the years, especially since their at their most impressionable ages. The pressure to conform to youth culture can put a tremendous amount of stress on adolescents, furthermore glorification and normalisation of certain things such as drug use and mental health issues has led to a significant increase in self-diagnosing and substance abuse. Global youth culture also has a tendency to affect consumer culture in many aspects due to the myriad of trends that appear on social media platforms such as instagram, which puts excessive strain on our planet and an increase in financial instability.
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