Becoming “Smart”: Youth, Smartphones, and Consumer Culture in Urban Bangladesh
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.48165/sajssh.2026.7111Keywords:
Smart, Smartness, Smartphones, Consumer Culture, Youth, Consumption-centric lifestyleAbstract
In technologically advancing Bangladesh, smartphones are central to progress yet are fostering a new consumer culture among youth. This qualitative study investigates how smartphone consumption cultivates a consumption-centred lifestyle and reinforces class and identity-based inequalities. It further explores how these devices generate new norms concerning relationships, pleasure, and self-perception. Data were collected via ethnographic interviews, focus group discussions, case studies, and observation with 45 students across three universities. Findings reveal that purchases are driven more by brand value and social acceptance than technical utility. Influenced by capitalist structures, youth frame consumption as a pathway to pleasure, identity, and social belonging, a process that perpetuates social inequality. A palpable social pressure to participate in this consumerism was evident. Ultimately, smartphone usage has become a cultural determinant of "being smart," a perception shaped by society, family, media, and corporate interests. The study concludes that this dynamic exacerbates class division. These findings aim to equip educators, development organizations, and policymakers to address these inequalities and guide a more critical, beneficial engagement with technology.
References
Adorno, T. W., & Horkheimer, M. (2002). Dialectic of enlightenment: Philosophical fragments (E. Jephcott, Trans.). Stanford University Press. (Original work published 1944)
Agger, B. (2011). iTime: Labour and life in a smartphone era. Time & Society, 20(1), 119–136. https://doi.org/10.1177/0961463X10380716
Akeusola, B. N. (2023). Exploring smartphone use patterns and their associations with demographic characteristics, socio-psychological well-being, and socio-cultural factors among Nigerian youth. International Journal of Humanities Technology and Civilization, 8(2), 53–63. https://doi.org/10.15282/ijhtc.v8i2.9692
Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics. (2023). Household income and expenditure survey 2022 [PDF]. Government of Bangladesh. https://file-dhaka.portal.gov.bd/uploads/138b245ae0ce-455a-9fb4-db7fc193a56e//689/842/183/689842183e1db807478886.pdf
Bourdieu, P. (1984). Distinction: A social critique of the judgement of taste (R. Nice, Trans.). Harvard University Press.
boyd, d. (2014). It’s complicated: The social lives of networked teens. Yale University Press.
Castells, M. (1996). The rise of the network society: The information age: Economy, society, and culture (Vol. 1). Blackwell Publishers.
Chen, C.-Y. (2018). Smartphone addiction: Psychological and social factors predict the use and abuse of a social mobile application. Information, Communication & Society. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1080/1369118X.2018.1518469
Feenberg, A. (2002). Transforming technology: A critical theory revisited. Oxford University Press.
Filieri, R., & Lin, Z. (2017). The role of aesthetic, cultural, utilitarian and branding factors in young Chinese consumers’ repurchase intention of smartphone brands. Computers in Human Behavior, 68, 117–126. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2016.09.057
Horst, H. A., & Miller, D. (2006). The cell phone: An anthropology of communication. Berg.
Jenkins, H. (2006). Convergence culture: Where old and new media collide. New York University Press.
Johansson, R. (2002). Ett explikativt angreppssätt – Fallstudiemetodikens utveckling, logiska grund och betydelse i arkitekturforskningen. Nordic Journal of Architectural Research, 53(2), 19–28.
Kim, D., Chun, H., & Lee, H. (2014). Determining the factors that influence college students’ adoption of smartphones. Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology, 65(3), 578–588. https://doi.org/10.1002/asi.22987
Lee, J., Cho, B., Kim, Y., & Noh, J. (2015). Smartphone addiction in university students and its implication for learning. In G. Chen et al. (Eds.), Emerging issues in smart learning (pp. 297–301). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-44188-6_40
Ling, R. (2012). Taken for grantedness: The embedding of mobile communication into society. MIT Press.
Lu, J., Hao, Q., & Jing, M. (2016). Consuming, sharing, and creating content: How young students use new social media in and outside school. Computers in Human Behavior, 64, 55–64. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2016.06.019
MacKenzie, D., & Wajcman, J. (Eds.). (1999). The social shaping of technology (2nd ed.). Open University Press.
Marx, K. (1990). Capital: A critique of political economy (B. Fowkes, Trans.; Vol. 1). Penguin Classics. (Original work published 1867)
Meyrowitz, J. (2001). The shifting worlds of strangers: The rise of new quasi-primary, secondary, and tertiary relationships through television and the internet. In G. E. Kaplowitz (Ed.), Readings in human–computer interaction: Toward the year 2000 (2nd ed., pp. 103–115). Morgan Kaufmann.
Miller, D., Costa, E., Haynes, N., McDonald, T., Nicolescu, R., Sinanan, J., Spyer, J., Venkatraman, S., & Wang, X. (2016). How the world changed social media. UCL Press.
Miller, D., Abed Rabho, L., Awondo, P., de Vries, M., Duque, M., Garvey, P., Haapio-Kirk, L., Hawkins, C., Otaegui, A., Walton, S., & Wang, X. (2021). The global smartphone: Beyond a youth technology. UCL Press. https://www.uclpress.co.uk/products/159301
Park, C., Jun, J. K., & Lee, T. M. (2015). Do mobile shoppers feel smart in the smartphone age? International Journal of Mobile Communications, 13(2), 157–171. https://doi.org/10.1504/IJMC.2015.067961
Peltonen, E., Lagerspetz, E., Hamberg, J., Mehrotra, A., Musolesi, M., Nurmi, P., & Tarkoma, S. (2018, September 3–6).The hidden image of mobile apps: Geographic, demographic, and cultural factors in mobile usage. In Proceedings of the 20th International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction with Mobile Devices and Services (MobileHCI ’18) (Barcelona, Spain). https://doi.org/10.1145/3229434.322947
Pink, S., Horst, H., Postill, J., Hjorth, L., Lewis, T., & Tacchi, J. (2016). Digital ethnography: Principles and practice. SAGE Publications.
Rosa, H. (2013). Social acceleration: A new theory of modernity (J. Trejo-Mathys, Trans.). Columbia University Press. (Original work published 2005)
Sarwar, M., & Soomro, T. R. (2013). Impact of smartphones on society. European Journal of Scientific Research, 98(2), 216–226. http://www.europeanjournalofscientificresearch.com
Statista. (2021). Number of smartphone users worldwide from 2016 to 2021 (in billions). Retrieved December 6, 2021, from https://www.statfordia.com/statistics/330695/number-of-smartphone-users-worldwide/
The Daily Star. (2021, March 31). 72% youths use smartphones for internet: Survey. https://www.thedailystar.net/business/telecom/news/72pc-youths-smartphones-use-internet-survey-2172526
Zheng, P., & Ni, L. M. (2006). Smart phone and next generation mobile computing. Morgan Kaufmann. https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-012088560-2/50001-0
Zong, W., Zheng, Z., Zhang, C., & Liu, L. (2019). Use of smartphone applications and its impacts on urban life. Cities, 84, 9–18. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cities.2018.07.002
Downloads
Published
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2026 South Asian Journal of Social Sciences and Humanities
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
