Communications in Humanities Research ISSN: 2753-7072
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Research Article

Consumerist Internet Culture in the Age of Short Video and Its Influence on Adolescent Values: A Critical Review

Fengtian HanHarrow International School*

* Corresponding author: [email protected]

Abstract

Short video has become one of the fastest-growing internet applications among minors in China and, at the same time, the most active arena for the spread of consumerist internet culture. Drawing on consumer society theory, cultivation theory and social comparison theory, this paper offers a critical review of the literature on how consumerist culture in short-video contexts shapes adolescent values. Three mechanisms are identified: algorithm-driven immersive cultivation, influencer marketing that blurs the boundary between advertising and content, and upward social comparison combined with conspicuous consumption display. Evidence from authoritative surveys and representative empirical studies indicates that materialism is robustly negatively related to adolescent well-being, and that exposure to commercial content raises materialism via the pathway of product desire. Yet the effects are highly heterogeneous: moderate use and addictive use have sharply different consequences, and sweeping "moral panic" judgements are not supported by the evidence. The paper concludes with implications for platform governance, advertising disclosure and media literacy education, and argues that conceptual advertising literacy alone offers weak protection under the low-elaboration conditions in which short video is consumed, so that educational measures must be paired with structural governance of platform commercial architecture.Au 3 +

Keywords: Short Video; Consumerism; Adolescent Values; Materialism; Influencer Marketing
Published: August 12, 2026
DOI: 10.54254/2753-7064/2026.HT36028
Volume: CHR Vol.118
pp. 26-33
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