The article presents some results of the sociological study " Values and social practices of the Kazakh youth (on the example of the East Kazakhstan region)". The main attention is paid to the issues of leisure preferences of modern Kazakh youth. The main research focus is on comparing the interests, values, and social practices of three groups of respondents who differ in the time of socialization in the urban environment – indigenous citizens (group A), who recently came to the city from rural areas to study or work (group B), and those who spent their childhood in the village, but have been undergoing the process of adapting to the urban lifestyle for several years (group C). This approach allows the authors to identify the algorithm of changes in values characteristic of the processes of modernization of the Kazakh youth in the context of urbanization. Special attention is paid to the leisure sphere – preferred activities, interests in literature, movies, and television series. The influence of such factors as urbanization and globalization on the content of free time of the Kazakh urban youth is considered.