Me–A Consumer? Consumption,Identities and Lifestyles in Today's Finland

Abstract

Recent sociological theories of consumption and lifestyles usually argue that consumption plays an essential role in the creation and maintenance of personal identities. For the consumers, the identity sustaning process operates through playing with the lifestyles that are fragmented, flexible and fluid. The consumers of the digital era are argued to be unpredictable, individualistie, expressive and also highly competent in their spending patterns. This kind of approach is questionable. It is doubtful that people make a conscious decision to use consumption as a means of playing with identities. Economic restraints, social regulation, conventions, routiness, socialization in peer groups are (still) likely to restrict the freedom of the consumer. In this study, the the importance of consumption for identity-formation was examined eempirically by analysing a data set derived from a lifestyle survey, Finland 1999. The findinges suggest that most Finnish consumers may not consciously consider consumption to be a major part of their identities. Although some materialist and hedonist lifestyles were found, many consumption styles were also characterized by modest and rational spending patterns. Saving money was important for most consumers, and many also underestimated their consumption. Socio-economic and demographic factors, particularly gender, age, class position and income had also a strong effect on consumption and lifestyles. Hence, on the basis of this data, most Finnish consumers seem rather ordinary and not quite as individualistic as postmodern theories argue.