Of course you judge people by what they watch

The purpose of this study was to investigate to what extent young adults use media to create the image of themselves. The questions we wanted to answer was as follows: what does the media use of young adults look like compared to their attitudes towards media content; what awareness do they have of other young adults attitudes concerning media content; and finally, how do these attitudes affect their own media use? Media consumption is a great part of the daily lives of young adults living in Sweden: the national average media consumption is seven hours a day, for 15-24 year olds. This provides a new way for young adults to express their identity - by showing their use of different media content, they can change other's perception of themselves. The method we used in our study was a combination between a quantitative and a qualitative method. We first made a survey in three classes with senior year high school-students, in a Swedish school. The survey was then followed by five in-depth interviews with one or two students representing each class. The study showed that young adults use media consumption as a mean to fitting in, rather than as a mean to distinguishing themselves. Media consumption is of a greater importance when the young adult is creating an identity as 'one in the group', compared to when the young adult is creating his or her own personal identity. For the young adults we studied, the main advantage of displaying their media consumption was to show others they belonged. They achieved this by participating in discussions concerning media content, as discussions concerning media content was a daily routine in their lives.