Digital Transactions and False Needs: A Marcusean Social Critique of Migrant Students Consumerism

Abstract

Cashless payments have become part of university students’ everyday routines in Kediri, but their social implications extend beyond convenience. This study examines how eight students living away from home negotiate digital payments, promotional offers, and the pressure to participate in campus consumer culture. Using a qualitative, critical-interpretive design, the analysis draws on semi-structured interviews, non-participant observations, and relevant scholarship. Herbert Marcuse’s ideas of false needs and one-dimensional society provide the theoretical framework. The synthesis highlights four interconnected processes: the ease of repeated small purchases, the influence of promotions and digital credit, the commercial uses of transaction data, and the symbolic importance of urban consumption spaces. Participants’ accounts illustrate how practical spending decisions may become entangled with desires for speed, belonging, and social recognition. Digital payments also offer genuine benefits, particularly for students managing everyday life independently. Rather than treating cashless technology as inherently harmful, the article shows how convenience can coexist with pressures to consume. The findings contribute a context-sensitive reading of digital consumerism and support a more reflective approach to digital financial literacy in higher education.