A Sociological Analysis On Online Consumer Behavior Of University Students

As an important phenomenon in people’s social and economic life, economists have study consumption for a very long time. After the industrial revolution, overproduction emerged in the capitalist world and the consumption problem had been paid attention increasingly, many disciplines including sociology carried out researches on consumption. After the World War II, capitalist economy entered a golden age of rapid development, and social wealth were abundant greatly, production society was replaced by consumption society. In consumption society, consumption has become the reasonable spiritual ballast for people. As the plan of Internet Plus is put forward and pushed forward, the influence of internet for Chinese society steps into a new stage. Online consumption generated along with the development of internet and impacted traditional consumption patterns with its formidable vitality. With the popularization of computer and smart phone among university student group, the internet has become indispensable parts in study and life of university students, and online consumption is becoming more and more popular among them. As one of the main component groups of Chinese netizens, the online consumer behavior not only represent the current features of Chinese online consumption but also determine the development direction of Chinese online consumption in the future. On account of the immature minds of university students, the online consumer behavior of them are easily influenced by external environment, which causes many problems in the online consumer behavior of university students, such as blind consumption, excessive consumption, etc. However, the problems of the online consumer behavior of university students have not been paid sufficient attention. Therefore, the study of online consumer behavior of university students has important meaning for families, universities and society.This research starts from the perspective of sociology and combines the related theories of consumption society, basing on the presentation of current existed document literature, and applying the questionnaire and interview to conduct empirical study for 292 university students of three universities in Chongqing. The contents of questionnaire include the basic information of informants, the condition of online consumption of university students and the online consumer behavior of university students such three parts. To analyze the interview data and investigative data with the help of SPSS and Excel, and summarize the features of online consumer behavior of university students, such as the pursuit of characteristic consumption, pay attention to symbolic value, the online consumer behavior are influenced by their peer groups significantly, the existence of contradictory psychology of their online consumer behavior. On this basis, the author finds the existed problems of online consumer behavior of current university students, which include impulsive consumption and blind consumption, compared consumption and excessive consumption, obvious false demand consumption and low proportions of spiritual pursuit in online consumption four aspects. And the author analyzes the existed problems through three aspects: social environment and mass communication, school education and campus environment, family education and family environment. At last, this article puts forward advice to shape rational online consumer behavior of university students through social groups, social mentality and social action three levels.