A Danish database with data from 50,000 households, their energy consumption combined with building characteristics and the socio-economic data on their inhabitants documents that one teenager in a household entails a 20% higher electricity consumption than that of an average adult. These data will be presented as an introduction to the paper. There are however also other reasons for being interested in the consumer behaviour of teenagers. On the one hand teenagers are the adult consumers of tomorrow and some of their energy consuming behaviour may follow them throughout their life. On the other hand teenagers as consumers are known from other studies to be a special consumer group in that they are very much aware of and sensitive to the opinions and behaviour of their peer-groups.

Departing from these reflections, a qualitative interview investigation with a focus on families with teenagers was carried out. In-depth interviews with nine parents and their teenagers focused on how teenagers use and purchase information and communication technology (ICT) such as televisions, mobile phones, computers etc. The paper reports on the qualitative findings on the dynamics of consumption among teenagers’ ICT use. The analyses draw on recent consumer theory and discuss in the conclusion how such findings can give new directions for energy policies.Rationale for focusing on teenage consumption of ICT

A Danish database with data from 50,000 households, their energy consumption combined with building characteristics and the socio-economic data on their inhabitants documents that one teenager in a household entails a 20% higher electricity consumption than that of an average adult.

There are however also other reasons for being interested in the consumer behaviour of teenagers. On the one hand teenagers are the adult consumers of tomorrow and some of their energy consuming behaviour may follow them throughout their life. On the other hand teenagers as consumers are known from other studies to be a special consumer group in that they are very much aware of and sensitive to the opinions and behaviour of their peer-groups.

Departing from these reflections, a qualitative interview investigation with a focus on families with teenagers was carried out. In-depth interviews with nine parents and their teenagers focused on how teenagers use and purchase information and communication technology (ICT) such as televisions, mobile phones, computers etc. The paper reports on the qualitative findings on the dynamics of consumption among teenagers’ ICT use. The analyses draw on recent consumer theory and discuss in the conclusion how such findings can give new directions for energy policies.

Results show that by using all available data approximately one third of the variations on electricity and water consumption and half of the variations on heat consumption can be explained. At the same time this means that quite a lot of the variations between households cannot be described quantitatively, but has to be understood in terms of qualitative descriptions. For water and electricity consumption the number of persons living in the household is the single most significant variable, whereas for heating the floor area is most significant (only electricity is shown here).

In general what we heard from these interviews about ICT was that all the teenagers had quite a lot of different technologies, however not all of them used all the technologies with the same frequency. Generally the teenagers’ ICT behaviour seemed to vary much more than their ICT possessions.

Danish Building Research Institute
http://www.sbi.dk
Kirsten Gram-Hansen

01/06/2005

research

Urban Policy > Social inclusion & integration > Quality of life

Skills improvement