A Study on the Impact of the Traffic Economy on College Students' Consumption Psychology from a Positive Psychology Perspective

In the platform-dominated traffic economy, attention is organized as a tradable scarce resource, shifting consumption from "utility calculation" to a psychological process of "being seen—being recognized—being converted."College students, highly digitally adapted, exhibit consumption motivations characterized by a composite structure of emotional regulation, identity construction, and belonging-seeking. Existing research primarily focuses on marketing, platform governance, and financial risks, yet lacks systematic explanations for "how traffic shapes consumption through psychological mechanisms" and "how positive psychology achieves developmental guidance."This paper proposes a dual-pathway model of risk and gain within the positive psychology framework of "Strengths-Meaning-Thriving": On one hand, traffic mechanisms trigger impulsive consumption, competitive anxiety, and credit overextension through instant feedback, symbolic meaning, and social comparison. On the other hand, leveraging psychological capital and self-determination needs, the traffic field can also be transformed into a resource arena for interest development, social connection, and self-efficacy growth.It further proposes a "positive governance" strategy: enhancing autonomy through attention/algorithm literacy, elevating consumption purposefulness via strengths identification and meaning education, and strengthening delayed gratification and risk recognition through financial and media literacy training—thus shifting consumption motivation from external control to intrinsic value-driven.