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Essay on Youth Culture Today for Students and Children

January 20, 2020 by Sandeep

500+ Words Essay on Youth Culture Today

What is Youth Culture? Youth Culture is the term used to describe the ways teenagers lead and conduct their lives. It can refer to their interests, styles, behaviours, music choices, beliefs, vocabulary, clothes, sports preferences and dating relationships.

The concept behind youth culture is that adolescents are a subculture with norms, behaviours and values that differ from the main culture of older generations within society.

Youth culture, especially in the western world, is more about what they wear, the lifestyle they support, the electronic gadgets they own, as a majority or group. There are even competitions for higher ranks, wherein the high ranking ones are the most beautiful, richest, own a wider array of gadgets, and have the most amount of cool friends.

It isn’t that much about who you are but more about what you have. Reality television shows, magazines and the newest gadgets are what rules the youth and the world at large today. It is getting quite out of hand, and because of the new life-stage as ‘teens’, young people don’t realise the big importance they have on the future.

Development of Youth Culture

Youth culture was first developed in the 20th century when it became more common for adolescents to gather together in groups or fandom. Historically, prior to this time, many adolescents spent a large portion of their time with adults or with their siblings. But the introduction of compulsory schooling and other societal changes made the joint socialisation of adolescents more prevalent.

Psychologists such as Erik Erikson have theorised that the primary goal in the developmental stage of adolescence is to answer the question, “Who am I?” If this is the case, it is natural to assume that in finding out one’s own identity, one would seek others within the same age group and generation to grow and learn together and understand the social norms and values of society.

Theorists such as Adele M. Fasick agree that adolescents are in a confused state of mind and that identity development happens during this time as they exert independence from parents and have a greater reliance on their peer groups.

Characteristics of the Youth Today

The youth of today are not like any other preceding generations. They are stronger, more united, and far more understanding. One of the main characteristics of the youth of today is their firm determination. Some might misunderstand this trait for stubbornness, which is also true.

However, our youngsters set their sights very firmly on a certain goal, and do everything in their power to achieve it, sometimes going even beyond what is in their hands to do extra.

This gives them stamina and immense courage to accomplish their target on time with utmost perfection. If we closely observe their behaviour, we notice that their dedication and sincerity towards the work increases day-by-day.

Our young generation also has a very good capacity to withstand stressful situations. They can manage any and every circumstance in a patient manner. Gender is no bar to the withstanding ability. Everyone is equally tested and treated in the world of employment and performance, and the parameters are very competitively met by our charming youth.

The ability to manage stress is also one of the primary investigators in the field of psychoneuroimmunology, which is the study of the relationship between psychological factors and working of the immune system. Seeing as our youth ward off stress not just by ignoring it, but working around it, the youth are also constantly in good health .

One of the down factors is that the blood of the youth gets heated up much too frequently. The youth lacks patience in some areas, and they all need their tasks to be completed as and when required and that too immediately. The loss of patience and the hot temper is often the cause of violence and rage. This is evident from the new-fangled tradition of cursing horrendously at the littlest of things.

Our youthful generation is also extremely tech-savvy. They can complete every task in a single click. The cyber world has given them a life of ease and comfort, in comparison to the long hours that used to be spent at offices. However, this has a downside too. The tech savvy youth have lost the values of physical exercise.

Running games are now played virtually on a gaming screen. These factors are landing the youth into poor health conditions at a tender age, especially due to factors such as obesity. We have reached an era where our youth are unable to perceive anything without the Internet. They have become completely dependent on technology.

Probably the most defining characteristic of the youth of today is their strong rebellion. Now, this might be taken as a bad quality by a lot of people, but in my opinion, this is an excellent thing. The youth do not simply rebel against anything and everything.

They pick and choose their battles carefully and the only rebel against the wrong things in our society. For example, the youth are standing up for the rights of women. They have taken up the fight against racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, and many other problems.

The older generations often criticise the youth for being lazy and not being outdoors all the time. But I believe that that is a wrong notion. They may not be as active as the earlier generations in terms of playing games, but the important thing is, they are keeping themselves busy doing something.

The youth don’t just sit back, relaxing. When they see a problem, they devise methods to overcome it, instead of sitting and gossiping about it. They hold protests, strikes and marches in support of their demands.

The youth are currently the only people working towards saving of our planet from climate change , seeing as no one else is taking it seriously. Contrary to popular belief, there are many other sides to this new youth culture than just sex and teenage pregnancy.

The youngsters are well aware of the balancing equations of life. The general IQ and social awareness cause them to help in the upliftment of the rural segments of the world. They are the ones who plan and promote the development of the under-developed nations. They are passionate about their nations, and sometimes, even more, passionate about the world as a nation together.

Reasons for the Youth Culture of Today

The youth of today are unlike any before in all of history. This is because of several factors. The world is ever changing, developing in certain fields and regressing in others.

The previous generations, when they were youth, never had to experience the kinds of difficulties and pressures today’s youth go through almost every day. Of course, no one means to undermine the difficulties of past generations.

Some of the factors that are responsible for the youth culture of today include the school shootings, the rising paedophilia, easy access to narcotics, the dark web, graphic sexual images on billboards and magazine covers, ever rising racism, and several others. Imagine going to school every day, innocently, and yet never knowing whether you will be coming back home or not.

Young people are being challenged in their everyday lives by the media, their peers and by the school. They are challenged to go beyond their own personal and familial boundaries. Modern technology and advancement have given everyone invaluable tools for communication: cell phones , e-mail, pagers, computers , instant messaging and text messaging, all for the purpose of improving our communication skills.

But very often, although parents are very quick to supply their children with all these communication tools of our modern age, they don’t spend more than fifteen minutes a day speaking to their children on a one-on-one basis.

It is crucial to understand that the youth culture is a type of stereotype wherein we are trying to fit in all the youth of the world. This is not realistically possible. The youth are from all over the world, they glorify in their diversity.

Trying to fit them all into one culture is the same as saying that the lion, dolphin and ostrich are all the same simply because they are all in the animal kingdom.

Greater Good Science Center • Magazine • In Action • In Education

How Teens Today Are Different from Past Generations

Every generation of teens is shaped by the social, political, and economic events of the day. Today’s teenagers are no different—and they’re the first generation whose lives are saturated by mobile technology and social media.

In her new book, psychologist Jean Twenge uses large-scale surveys to draw a detailed portrait of ten qualities that make today’s teens unique and the cultural forces shaping them. Her findings are by turn alarming, informative, surprising, and insightful, making the book— iGen:Why Today’s Super-Connected Kids Are Growing Up Less Rebellious, More Tolerant, Less Happy—and Completely Unprepared for Adulthood—and What That Means for the Rest of Us —an important read for anyone interested in teens’ lives.

Who are the iGens?

Twenge names the generation born between 1995 and 2012 “iGens” for their ubiquitous use of the iPhone, their valuing of individualism, their economic context of income inequality, their inclusiveness, and more.

She identifies their unique qualities by analyzing four nationally representative surveys of 11 million teens since the 1960s. Those surveys, which have asked the same questions (and some new ones) of teens year after year, allow comparisons among Boomers, Gen Xers, Millennials, and iGens at exactly the same ages. In addition to identifying cross-generational trends in these surveys, Twenge tests her inferences against her own follow-up surveys, interviews with teens, and findings from smaller experimental studies. Here are just a few of her conclusions.

iGens have poorer emotional health thanks to new media. Twenge finds that new media is making teens more lonely, anxious, and depressed, and is undermining their social skills and even their sleep.

iGens “grew up with cell phones, had an Instagram page before they started high school, and do not remember a time before the Internet,” writes Twenge. They spend five to six hours a day texting, chatting, gaming, web surfing, streaming and sharing videos, and hanging out online. While other observers have equivocated about the impact, Twenge is clear: More than two hours a day raises the risk for serious mental health problems.

She draws these conclusions by showing how the national rise in teen mental health problems mirrors the market penetration of iPhones—both take an upswing around 2012. This is correlational data, but competing explanations like rising academic pressure or the Great Recession don’t seem to explain teens’ mental health issues. And experimental studies suggest that when teens give up Facebook for a period or spend time in nature without their phones, for example, they become happier.

The mental health consequences are especially acute for younger teens, she writes. This makes sense developmentally, since the onset of puberty triggers a cascade of changes in the brain that make teens more emotional and more sensitive to their social world.

Social media use, Twenge explains, means teens are spending less time with their friends in person. At the same time, online content creates unrealistic expectations (about happiness, body image, and more) and more opportunities for feeling left out—which scientists now know has similar effects as physical pain . Girls may be especially vulnerable, since they use social media more, report feeling left out more often than boys, and report twice the rate of cyberbullying as boys do.

Social media is creating an “epidemic of anguish,” Twenge says.

iGens grow up more slowly. iGens also appear more reluctant to grow up. They are more likely than previous generations to hang out with their parents, postpone sex, and decline driver’s licenses.

Twenge floats a fascinating hypothesis to explain this—one that is well-known in social science but seldom discussed outside academia. Life history theory argues that how fast teens grow up depends on their perceptions of their environment: When the environment is perceived as hostile and competitive, teens take a “fast life strategy,” growing up quickly, making larger families earlier, and focusing on survival. A “slow life strategy,” in contrast, occurs in safer environments and allows a greater investment in fewer children—more time for preschool soccer and kindergarten violin lessons.

“Youths of every racial group, region, and class are growing up more slowly,” says Twenge—a phenomenon she neither champions nor judges. However, employers and college administrators have complained about today’s teens’ lack of preparation for adulthood. In her popular book, How to Raise an Adult , Julie Lythcott-Haims writes that students entering college have been over-parented and as a result are timid about exploration, afraid to make mistakes, and unable to advocate for themselves.

Twenge suggests that the reality is more complicated. Today’s teens are legitimately closer to their parents than previous generations, but their life course has also been shaped by income inequality that demoralizes their hopes for the future. Compared to previous generations, iGens believe they have less control over how their lives turn out. Instead, they think that the system is already rigged against them—a dispiriting finding about a segment of the lifespan that is designed for creatively reimagining the future.

iGens exhibit more care for others. iGens, more than other generations, are respectful and inclusive of diversity of many kinds. Yet as a result, they reject offensive speech more than any earlier generation, and they are derided for their “fragility” and need for “ trigger warnings ” and “safe spaces.” (Trigger warnings are notifications that material to be covered may be distressing to some. A safe space is a zone that is absent of triggering rhetoric.)

Today’s colleges are tied in knots trying to reconcile their students’ increasing care for others with the importance of having open dialogue about difficult subjects. Dis-invitations to campus speakers are at an all-time high, more students believe the First Amendment is “outdated,” and some faculty have been fired for discussing race in their classrooms. Comedians are steering clear of college campuses, Twenge reports, afraid to offend.

The future of teen well-being

Social scientists will discuss Twenge’s data and conclusions for some time to come, and there is so much information—much of it correlational—there is bound to be a dropped stitch somewhere. For example, life history theory is a useful macro explanation for teens’ slow growth, but I wonder how income inequality or rising rates of insecure attachments among teens and their parents are contributing to this phenomenon. And Twenge claims that childhood has lengthened, but that runs counter to data showing earlier onset of puberty.

So what can we take away from Twenge’s thoughtful macro-analysis? The implicit lesson for parents is that we need more nuanced parenting. We can be close to our children and still foster self-reliance. We can allow some screen time for our teens and make sure the priority is still on in-person relationships. We can teach empathy and respect but also how to engage in hard discussions with people who disagree with us. We should not shirk from teaching skills for adulthood, or we risk raising unprepared children. And we can—and must—teach teens that marketing of new media is always to the benefit of the seller, not necessarily the buyer.

Yet it’s not all about parenting. The cross-generational analysis that Twenge offers is an important reminder that lives are shaped by historical shifts in culture, economy, and technology. Therefore, if we as a society truly care about human outcomes, we must carefully nurture the conditions in which the next generation can flourish.

We can’t market technologies that capture dopamine, hijack attention, and tether people to a screen, and then wonder why they are lonely and hurting. We can’t promote social movements that improve empathy, respect, and kindness toward others and then become frustrated that our kids are so sensitive. We can’t vote for politicians who stall upward mobility and then wonder why teens are not motivated. Society challenges teens and parents to improve; but can society take on the tough responsibility of making decisions with teens’ well-being in mind?

The good news is that iGens are less entitled, narcissistic, and over-confident than earlier generations, and they are ready to work hard. They are inclusive and concerned about social justice. And they are increasingly more diverse and less partisan, which means they may eventually insist on more cooperative, more just, and more egalitarian systems.

Social media will likely play a role in that revolution—if it doesn’t sink our kids with anxiety and depression first.

About the Author

Diana Divecha

Diana Divecha, Ph.D. , is a developmental psychologist, an assistant clinical professor at the Yale Child Study Center and Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence, and on the advisory board of the Greater Good Science Center. Her blog is developmentalscience.com .

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In This Article Expand or collapse the "in this article" section Youth Culture

Introduction, theoretical interventions.

• Life-Cycle Shifts
• Socialization
• Language Use and Identity
• Subcultures
• Linguistic Style and Slang
• Schooling and Education
• Class and Labor
• Gender, Sex, and Sexuality
• Race and Racialization
• Modernity and Globalization
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Youth Culture by Shalini Shankar LAST REVIEWED: 28 May 2013 LAST MODIFIED: 28 May 2013 DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780199766567-0081

The anthropological study of youth began as part of broader inquiries about life cycle, ritual, personhood, and generation (e.g., Margaret Mead’s 1952 classic Coming of Age in Samoa ). Such early studies were generally interested in childhood and adolescence insofar as they offered further insight about a society and adult notions of personhood. “Youth culture,” the term widely used in academic and popular circles today, emerged in the 1950s and 1960s as a post–World War II phenomenon in the United States, Canada, and western Europe. A product of extended secondary schooling, delayed entry into the workforce, and the proliferation of consumer culture, youth culture has taken multiple forms with unique trajectories. Youth culture studies now include children, teenagers, and young people in their twenties, and have placed these individuals at the center of the inquiry, rather than as a liminal period before adulthood. This shift has led to productive understandings of broader anthropological questions of interest—such as race, gender, sexuality, class, globalization, modernity, education, and cultural production—while it also shows how youth action is a site of agency, resistance, identity construction, and social change. Scholarship examining style, adornment, and identity construction has made excellent use of the concept of subculture, while practice-based models have further considered the significance of leisure activity, such as consumption of media, commodities, and digital technologies, in young lives. Several other prominent areas have emerged, including childhood and socialization; psychologically informed approaches to child development; schooling as a lens to dynamics of race, gender, and class formation; and language use, identity, and subjectivity. In the past two decades or so, increased emphasis on the ways in which youth mediate globalization, modernity, migration, and transnationalism have come to the fore, as have studies that foreground issues of activism and politics. The potential of youth to be the initiators of social change, however measured, has been productively explored; so too have the struggles of youth as they cope with racism, poverty, abuse, violence, armed conflict, and other social ills. Methodologically, anthropological work on youth is marked by long-term, rigorous fieldwork using ethnographic and sometimes sociolinguistic approaches, and this in situ fieldwork has led to substantive insights about identity and subjectivity, while also attending to history and political economy. Such research has enabled youth to be regarded as significant contributors to the social worlds in which they operate, as well as how they may be poised to inherit and transform these worlds.

The shift to move youth from the margins to the center of anthropological inquiry has been a slow process. Still somewhat sidelined in the discipline overall, as Hirschfeld 2002 notes, theoretical interventions via review articles that define youth as a field of study help give it more of a presence. For instance, Bucholtz 2002 looks at youth culture with a practice-based approach that also considers language use. Korbin 2003 considers childhoods with violence, and Levine 2007 covers numerous contours and debates of this field. Revising approaches to theorizing youth, such as Durham 2004 , and considering issues of methodology and representation as shown in Best 2007 , keep critical focus on this field of inquiry. Sloan 2007 turns a focus on minority youth in particular (see also Shankar 2011 cited under Linguistic Style and Slang ). Undoing misconceptions about the ways that youth have been assessed in schools is also of major concern, especially to those working on the anthropology of education (see McDermott and Hall 2007 , as well as the citations under Schooling and Education ).

Best, Amy, ed. 2007. Representing youth: Methodological issues in critical youth studies . New York: New York Univ. Press.

A thoughtful collection of essays that examine the benefits and challenges of doing ethnographic fieldwork with children and youth.

Bucholtz, Mary. 2002. Youth and cultural practice. Annual Review of Anthropology 31:525–552.

DOI: 10.1146/annurev.anthro.31.040402.085443

This review article offers in-depth coverage of about three decades of youth culture studies. It establishes the work of the Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies in the 1970s as setting the stage for a practice-based approach, and draws in more recent work from anthropology and related fields.

Durham, Deborah. 2004. Disappearing youth: Youth as a social shifter in Botswana. American Ethnologist 31.4: 589–605.

DOI: 10.1525/ae.2004.31.4.589

Argues that youth should be considered less as a fixed category and more as a set of shifting relationships, and thus as a “shifter” in the indexical sense of indirectly pointing to broader social meanings.

Hirschfeld, Lawrence A. 2002. Why don’t anthropologists like children? American Anthropologist 104.2: 611–627.

DOI: 10.1525/aa.2002.104.2.611

Those working on youth culture may find the title question to ring true, as anthropology has largely marginalized youth as a legitimate field of inquiry and instead considered them primarily as a precursor to adulthood. This article offers reasons for these theoretical and ethnographic gaps and critiques anthropology’s overwhelming emphasis on adults.

Korbin, Jill E. 2003. Children, childhoods, and violence. Annual Review of Anthropology 32:431–446.

DOI: 10.1146/annurev.anthro.32.061002.093345

An overview of numerous types of violence children face and are recruited into, including armed conflict, bullying, abuse, violent rituals, and neglect. Also considers the violent behavior of youth as a form of agency.

Levine, Robert A. 2007. Ethnographic studies of childhood: A historical overview. American Anthropologist 109.2: 247–260.

DOI: 10.1525/aa.2007.109.2.247

A survey of approaches from Mead and Malinowski to twenty-first contemporary ethnography of children, with an emphasis on developmental and psychological perspectives.

McDermott, Ray, and Kathleen D. Hall. 2007. Scientifically debased research on learning, 1854–2006. Anthropology & Education Quarterly 38.1: 9–19.

This intervention documents problematic classroom practices, testing, and teacher training brought about by the No Child Left Behind Act, and calls for less standardized testing and more individual case studies.

Sloan, Kris. 2007. High-stakes accountability, minority youth, and ethnography: Assessing the multiple effects. Anthropology & Education Quarterly 38.1: 24–41.

DOI: 10.1525/aeq.2007.38.1.24

Illustrates the value of ethnography in offering a counterpoint to dominant perspectives on minority youth schooling, including curriculum, pedagogy, and student experiences.

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‘Speaking of Youth Culture’: A Critical Analysis of Contemporary Youth Cultural Practice

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• Andy Bennett  

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For a number of years, theorists have suggested that the term ‘youth culture’ corresponds with particularized forms of youth cultural practice clustered around the more spectacular manifestation of the consumption of music, style, and associated objects, images, and texts. However, such a focus serves to close off any discussion of ‘ordinary’ youth, that is, those young people who are not obvious, card-carrying members of style-based youth cultures. With the increasing turn in academic research to issues of youth leisure and lifestyle in more mundane contexts, combined with a growing body of work focusing on youth’s online practices, questions now need to be asked about the value, and validity, of focusing on ‘youth culture’ as this term has hitherto been defined and applied in sociology, cultural/media studies, and other academic disciplines interested in the cultural practices of youth. Aligned with this is the blurring now evident between youth culture as an age-specific practice and as a series of discourses through which individuals who are far beyond any categorization as ‘youth’ based on age continue to invest in ‘youth cultural’ identities. For example, many adults identify as punks, hard-core, or dance music fans, while simultaneously engaging with adult responsibilities and leading adult lives. This chapter will examine these and other challenges to our understanding of the term ‘youth culture’ and consider whether the latter continues to be a valid conceptual and analytical category.

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Youth and Play: Identity, Politics, and Lifestyle

Social Transformation of Youth and Youth Cultures in Europe: Trends, Theories and the Relevance of Youth Cultural Scenes

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Bennett, A. (2015). ‘Speaking of Youth Culture’: A Critical Analysis of Contemporary Youth Cultural Practice. In: Woodman, D., Bennett, A. (eds) Youth Cultures, Transitions, and Generations. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137377234_4

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Youth Culture   /   Spring 2009   /    Bibliographic Review

A bibliographic essay on youth culture, what is “youth”, emily o. gravett.

Youth, large, lusty, loving—youth, full of grace, force, fascination. —Walt Whitman 1 1 x Walt Whitman, “Youth, Day, Old Age and Night,” Leaves of Grass (Boston: Small, Maynard, 1905) 180.

One of the initial difficulties in mapping out a bibliographic terrain on youth culture is simply ascertaining what that terrain might be, beyond the impression that a line from a Whitman poem leaves. What is “youth”? Are such individuals children? Do they represent innocence, curiosity, naivete, or gullibility? Do youths qualify as adolescents or teenagers, on the cusp of adulthood, experimenting and experiencing, forging new identities for themselves? Or are they actually young adults, feet firmly planted in the world of responsibility and maturity?

First, it is important to remember that “youth” is a social construction, largely shaped by social and economic factors, and that, as Shirley Steinberg notes in the preface to Contemporary Youth Culture , the “notion of youth as we know it has not existed very long in historical time.” Indeed, for much of recorded history, adulthood began at the point we now think of as the years of adolescence, puberty, and “teenagehood”; younger members of society were simply viewed as miniature adults or “adults in training,” to borrow Stephen Mintz’s phrase from Huck’s Raft . Cultural issues that may have been pertinent only to young people or that may have required special treatment when studying this sector of society would have previously remained unaddressed. For this reason (and because the field, and its current data, changes so quickly), most of the texts listed below are quite recent.

While Picasso once said that “youth has no age,” modern institutions are prepared to offer firmer interpretations of this ambiguous term. For instance, while the United Nations defines this period as the years between 15 and 24 and the World Bank describes the category as that “time in a person’s life between childhood and adulthood” (also between 15 and 25), other institutions locate the term a bit earlier. 2 2 x For the UN definition, see http://www.un.org/esa/socdev/unyin/qanda.htm; for the World Bank definition, see http://youthink.worldbank.org/glossary.php. See the U.S. Department of Transportation’s definition, which designates “youth” as a person under 21 years of age: http://www.nhtsa.gov/people/ injury/research/FewerYoungDrivers/ii_ _data.htm. This bibliography also focuses on an earlier age range, situating the subject of study in the adolescent years.

Because youth is a constructed category that intersects with so many other aspects of life, the selection of topics to include in this bibliographic essay proved to be a challenge. Age always acts as a sort of horizontal cross-section of society, providing ranges to which many different subcategories could easily be applied. Everyone spends time in youth, and inevitably passes through it, whether they want to or not. Because of how comprehensive the subject of “youth” is, therefore, the sections below (and the texts included therein) are necessarily partial and selective. They focus on some of the most salient issues in contemporary youth culture studies, while acknowledging that many other directions were not chosen.

Reprinted from The Hedgehog Review 11.1 (Spring 2009). This essay may not be resold, reprinted, or redistributed for compensation of any kind without prior written permission. Please contact The Hedgehog Review for further details.

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Old Versus Young: The Cultural Generation Gap

Younger, more diverse generations promise to change all aspects of American society.

In this Issue:

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• Generations: People are living and working longer—changing the world
• Six Generations Moving Forward Together
• Crunch: Definining Generations
• Foreword: How Are Generations Named?
• The Generation Gap
• Getting More From a Longer Life
• Five Questions: Teaching the Next Generation
• Lessons From the Greatest Generation
• As the World Ages
• Generation X and the American Dream
• Millennials Aren’t Kids Anymore
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If demography is destiny, the United States—much more than its peers—is on the cusp of great change. That change is due to a deep cultural generation gap at play, which will alter all aspects of American society within the coming decade.

Driving this generational gap is a “diversity explosion” in the United States, which began in 2011 when, for the first time in the history of the country, more minority babies than white babies were born in a year. Soon, most children in the U.S. will be racial minorities: Hispanics, blacks, Asians, and other nonwhite races. And, in about three decades, whites will constitute a minority of all Americans. This milestone signals the beginning of a transformation from the mostly white baby-boom culture that dominated the nation during the last half of the 20th century to the more globalized, multiracial country that the United States is becoming.   

As the younger, more diverse part of the population reaches adulthood, clear gaps will develop between its economic interests and politics and those of the whiter, older generations . This divide will result in contests over local expenditures—for example, over whether to spend money on schools or senior health facilities—and those contests may evolve into culture clashes. Yet if demography is truly destiny, America's workforce, politics, and place on the world stage will soon be changed forever.

Data Points

America's “new minorities”—particularly Hispanics and Asians —are becoming an increasingly strong thread in the social fabric of the United States. While this has been growing clearer for some time, recent information from the census and elsewhere shows how quickly these minorities are transforming the character of the nation’s youth. Consider the change in the U.S. population under age 18 in the first decade of the 2000s: From 2000 to 2010, the population of white children declined by 4.3 million while the child population in each of the newer minority groups—Hispanics, Asians, and people of two or more races—increased. Hispanics registered the largest absolute increase in children , 4.8 million. Were it not for Hispanics, the nation’s child population would have declined. And in 2010, slightly more than half of children under age 5 were white, while the oldest age group—those 85 and older—was 85 percent white. This diversification of the U.S. population from the bottom up holds more than just demographic significance. It reflects an emerging cultural divide between the young and the old as they adapt to change in different ways. Different age groups represent different generations, which were raised and became adults in specific eras and may be more or less receptive to the cultural changes brought about by new racial groups. 

When viewed broadly, there is a sharp racial distinction between the baby boomers and their elders, and the younger generations—the millennials and young members of Generation X and their children, who constitute the population under the age of 35. Baby boomers and seniors are more than 70 percent white, with blacks representing the largest racial minority. In con-trast, millennials and young Gen Xers (largely under the age of 35) and their children are more than 40 percent minority, with Hispanics constituting the largest share of their minority population. A 2011 Pew Research Center poll shows that only 23 percent of baby boomers and seniors regard the country’s growing population of immigrants as a change for the better and that 42 percent see it as a change for the worse. More than one-half of white baby boomers and seniors said the growing number of newcomers from other countries represents a threat to traditional U.S. values and customs. 

The resistance of baby boomers to demographic change may seem surprising. This much-celebrated generation came to embody the image of middle America during the second half of the last century. Conceived during the prosperous post−World War II period, they brought a rebellious, progressive sensibility to the country in the 1960s, 1970s, and beyond. With the help of the programs of the Great Society, they became the most well-schooled generation to date and the epitome of America’s largely white, suburban middle class, with which most of today’s adults now identify. 

Yet the baby boomers also came of age at a moment when the United States was becoming more insular than it had been before. Growing up in mostly white, segregated suburbs, white baby boomers had less exposure to immigrants and foreign wars than their parents did. Between 1946 and 1964, the years of the baby boom, the immigrant share of the U.S. population shrank to an all-time low (under 5 percent), and the immigrants who did arrive were largely white Europeans. Although baby boomers were interested in righting domestic wrongs, such as racial discrimination, and busting glass ceilings in the workplace, they did not have much interaction with people from other countries. The cultural generation gap continues to appear when baby boomers and seniors are compared with the younger segment of the U.S. population, whose members are more likely to be first- or second-generation Americans of non-European ancestry and to be bilingual.

Between 1946 and 1964, the years of the baby boom, the immigrant share of the U.S. population shrank to an all-time low (under 5 percent), and the immigrants who did arrive were largely white Europeans.

Underpinning the generational divide are shifts in what demographers call old-age dependency (the population age 65 and over as a percent of the labor force–age population) and child dependency (the population under age 18 as a percent of the labor force–age population), which now have a distinct racial dimension. Both historically and internationally, the number of children dependent on the labor force–age population has been larger than the number of dependent retirees. However, in quickly aging countries where birth rates are declining and life expectancy is rising, seniors are increasing the numbers of the “dependent” population. That is of concern in the United States, given that government programs aiding the elderly, including those for medical care, cost substantially more than those aiding children. The cultural generation gap between the young and the old can exacerbate the competition for resources because the rise in the number of senior dependents is occurring more rapidly among whites than among minorities, for whom dependent children is a larger issue.

A look at the total U.S. population helps illustrate this. The growth of the senior population is affected by increased life expectancy and, more importantly, the aging of the baby boomers. From 2010 to 2030, the senior population is projected to grow by 84 percent. In contrast, the labor force–age population (ages 18 to 64) will grow by only 8 percent and the population under age 18 will grow by just 3 percent. Therefore, although new minorities and immigrants are driving the increases in the younger and labor force-age populations, the growth of the senior population is driven by the mostly white baby boomers. The dependency ratios show the shifts expected by 2040. Youth dependency was almost twice the level of old-age dependency in 2010 (38 versus 21) and will increase only slightly during the following three decades, while old-age dependency will rise by well over one-half—making seniors a substantial portion of the non-working-age population.

Yet this shift is far more dramatic for whites than for minorities. The comparison of dependen-cy ratios for whites and Hispanics shows their likely relative priorities with regard to spending on children versus seniors. For whites, youth dependency is lower than the U.S. total and is not much larger than white old-age dependency in 2010 (32 versus 26). In fact, by 2020, the old-age dependency ratio for whites will exceed the child dependency ratio, and for the two decades that follow, white seniors will outnumber white children. That stands in marked contrast to Hispanics, whose 2010 youth dependency ratio was 56 and whose old-age dependency ratio was only 9. Moreover, Hispanic youth dependency will remain well above 40 through 2040, even as the old-age dependency ratio inches up to 22. In other words, for at least the next three decades, Hispanic children will sharply outnumber Hispanic seniors. Although black and Asian youth dependency is not as marked as it is for Hispanics, it remains higher than senior dependency through at least 2030. Therefore there is no question that the primary concern of working-age Hispanics—and to a lesser extent Asians and blacks—will be their children rather than the older dependent population. For working-age whites, elderly dependents will be a primary concern as well as their own future well-being as they enter their retirement years. This demographic framework provides a concrete basis for considering the cultural generation gap and competition for government resources allocated to children and the elderly.

In discussing the long-term political ramifications of the generation gap, political writer Ronald Brownstein has framed it as a divide between “the gray and the brown,” wherein older whites, including aging baby boomers, favor smaller government investment in social support programs except for those, such as Social Security, that directly affect them. For these older voters, big government is associated with higher taxes, which primarily benefit younger demographic groups whose needs they do not fully appreciate. In contrast, surveys show that more diverse youth, particularly millennials, tend to support greater government spending on education, health, and social welfare programs that strongly affect young families and children. 

It is important for retiring baby boomers to understand that the solvency of government-supported retirement and medical care programs is directly dependent on the future productivity and payroll tax contributions of a workforce in which minorities, especially Hispanics, will dominate future growth. There is a well-recognized challenge in providing these future workers with the skills needed to make these contributions, and meeting that challenge requires public investment in education and related services. The dilemma, however, is that the largest government programs that directly benefit the elderly, such as Social Security and Medicare , are mostly financed by the federal government and are considered politically sacred by many. In contrast, programs for youth, such as education, are largely funded at the state and local levels and are far more vulnerable to economic downturns and budget cuts given that states, unlike the federal government, are required to balance their budgets annually. Therefore efforts to muster support for child-oriented programs require grassroots support across an often frag-mented political terrain. In the future, more young minorities will enter their prime voting years and both national political parties will need to balance the needs and concerns of new and old voters, particularly in regions of the country where the cultural generation gap is emerging.

"The cultural generation gap between the young and the old can exacerbate the competition for resources because the rise in the number of senior dependents is occurring more rapidly among whites than among minorities, for whom dependent children is a larger issue."

Although this gap is forming throughout the nation, the growth of the young new minority population and the steadier gains of the aging white population are occurring at different speeds in different regions. The most racially diverse and youthful populations are in states and met-ropolitan areas in the Southwest, Southeast, and major urban immigration centers where new minorities have had an established presence. A shorthand measure for what is happening in a state or metropolitan area is the difference between the percentage of seniors who are white and the percentage of children who are white. In 2010, 80 percent of the U.S. senior population and 54 percent of children were white, so the national gap was 26 percent. But among states, Arizona led the way, with a gap of 41 percent (83 percent of seniors and 42 percent of children were white). Nevada, California, New Mexico, Texas, and Florida were not far behind, with gap measures greater than 30. Among major metropolitan areas, the largest gaps were in Riverside, California; Phoenix; Las Vegas; and Dallas.

In contrast, large—mostly white—swaths of the country, including the noncoastal Northeast, Midwest, and Appalachia, are observing slow growth or even declines in their youth popula-tions while remaining home to large numbers of white baby boomers and seniors. The demo-graphic profiles of these regions, along with those of metropolitan areas such as Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, and St. Louis, will eventually converge with those of more diverse parts of the country. But in the interim, they will be adapting, often fitfully, to the changes occurring elsewhere. 

Still, the places where the cultural generation gap has generated the most contention are those where the gains in new minorities are large and recent. Arizona is emblematic because of its large gap and recent Hispanic growth of 175 percent from 1990 to 2010. In 2010, the state passed one of the strictest anti-immigration laws ever enacted, though it was later amended and portions of the law were struck down by the U.S. Supreme Court. Provisions included requirements that residents carry papers verifying their citizenship; if they did not, they would be subject to arrest, detention, and potential deportation. 

A statewide poll taken at the time split along racial lines: Sixty-five percent of whites but only 21 percent of Hispanics were in favor of the new law. Similarly, the law was favored by 62 percent of those 55 and older (across all races) but only 45 percent of those under 35. Later, other states with recent Hispanic or new immigrant population gains, including Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina, and Utah, proposed similarly strict immigration laws. 

As young new minorities continue to disperse outward from traditional gateways, the cultural generation gap will appear in communities of all sizes, but it will be widest in states where the growth of young minorities is new and the racial demographic profile of the younger generation differs most from that of the older generation.

Thus, on a variety of levels, the continuing spread of new minorities from the bottom up of the nation’s age distribution creates important opportunities for the growth and productivity of the nation’s population and workforce. But that spread also presents challenges in light of the sharp cultural shift that is taking place. The divide will require adaptation on all sides, and policymakers and citizens alike will need to approach these changes with a long view. Rather than seeing the inevitable changes as damaging to the American way of life, it will behoove the nation to consider the future of the country and prepare now for a country that will be majority-minority. 

William H. Frey is a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and research professor with the Population Studies Center and Institute for Social Research at the University of Michigan. He is author of Diversity Explosion: How New Racial Demographics Are Remaking America, from which this essay is adapted.

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Youth culture refers to the cultural values, attitudes, beliefs, behaviors, and practices of young people. It is often associated with popular music, fashion, slang, and social media trends. Youth culture is dynamic, constantly evolving and changing in response to new technologies, social, economic, and political contexts. It represents the interests, concerns, and aspirations of young people and shapes their identity formation and socialization. Youth culture can have both positive and negative effects on young people, depending on how it is expressed, interpreted, and valued by society. It is an important site of creativity, activism, and social change, and it provides a platform for young people to express themselves, connect with others, and challenge dominant cultural norms and values.

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It’s Time to Stop Talking About “Generations”

The discovery that you can make money marketing merchandise to teen-agers dates from the early nineteen-forties, which is also when the term “youth culture” first appeared in print. There was a reason that those things happened when they did: high school. Back in 1910, most young people worked; only fourteen per cent of fourteen- to seventeen-year-olds were still in school. In 1940, though, that proportion was seventy-three per cent. A social space had opened up between dependency and adulthood, and a new demographic was born: “youth.”

The rate of high-school attendance kept growing. By 1955, eighty-four per cent of high-school-age Americans were in school. (The figure for Western Europe was sixteen per cent.) Then, between 1956 and 1969, college enrollment in the United States more than doubled, and “youth” grew from a four-year demographic to an eight-year one. By 1969, it made sense that everyone was talking about the styles and values and tastes of young people: almost half the population was under twenty-five.

Today, a little less than a third of the population is under twenty-five, but youth remains a big consumer base for social-media platforms, streaming services, computer games, music, fashion, smartphones, apps, and all kinds of other goods, from motorized skateboards to eco-friendly water bottles. To keep this market churning, and to give the consulting industry something to sell to firms trying to understand (i.e., increase the productivity of) their younger workers, we have invented a concept that allows “youth culture” to be redefined periodically. This is the concept of the generation.

The term is borrowed from human reproductive biology. In a kinship structure, parents and their siblings constitute “the older generation”; offspring and their cousins are “the younger generation.” The time it takes, in our species, for the younger generation to become the older generation is traditionally said to be around thirty years. (For the fruit fly, it’s ten days.) That is how the term is used in the Hebrew Bible, and Herodotus said that a century could be thought of as the equivalent of three generations.

Around 1800, the term got transplanted from the family to society. The new idea was that people born within a given period, usually thirty years, belong to a single generation. There is no sound basis in biology or anything else for this claim, but it gave European scientists and intellectuals a way to make sense of something they were obsessed with, social and cultural change. What causes change? Can we predict it? Can we prevent it? Maybe the reason societies change is that people change, every thirty years.

Before 1945, most people who theorized about generations were talking about literary and artistic styles and intellectual trends—a shift from Romanticism to realism, for example, or from liberalism to conservatism. The sociologist Karl Mannheim, in an influential essay published in 1928, used the term “generation units” to refer to writers, artists, and political figures who self-consciously adopt new ways of doing things. Mannheim was not interested in trends within the broader population. He assumed that the culture of what he called “peasant communities” does not change.

Nineteenth-century generational theory took two forms. For some thinkers, generational change was the cause of social and historical change. New generations bring to the world new ways of thinking and doing, and weed out beliefs and practices that have grown obsolete. This keeps society rejuvenated. Generations are the pulse of history. Other writers thought that generations were different from one another because their members carried the imprint of the historical events they lived through. The reason we have generations is that we have change, not the other way around.

There are traces of both the pulse hypothesis and the imprint hypothesis in the way we talk about generations today. We tend to assume that there is a rhythm to social and cultural history that maps onto generational cohorts, such that each cohort is shaped by, or bears the imprint of, major historical events—Vietnam, 9/11, COVID . But we also think that young people develop their own culture, their own tastes and values, and that this new culture displaces the culture of the generation that preceded theirs.

Today, the time span of a generational cohort is usually taken to be around fifteen years (even though the median age of first-time mothers in the U.S. is now twenty-six and of first-time fathers thirty-one). People born within that period are supposed to carry a basket of characteristics that differentiate them from people born earlier or later.

This supposition requires leaps of faith. For one thing, there is no empirical basis for claiming that differences within a generation are smaller than differences between generations. (Do you have less in common with your parents than with people you have never met who happen to have been born a few years before or after you?) The theory also seems to require that a person born in 1965, the first year of Generation X, must have different values, tastes, and life experiences from a person born in 1964, the last year of the baby-boom generation (1946-64). And that someone born in the last birth year of Gen X, 1980, has more in common with someone born in 1965 or 1970 than with someone born in 1981 or 1990.

Everyone realizes that precision dating of this kind is silly, but although we know that chronological boundaries can blur a bit, we still imagine generational differences to be bright-line distinctions. People talk as though there were a unique DNA for Gen X—what in the nineteenth century was called a generational “entelechy”—even though the difference between a baby boomer and a Gen X-er is about as meaningful as the difference between a Leo and a Virgo.

You could say the same things about decades, of course. A year is, like a biological generation, a measurable thing, the time it takes the Earth to orbit the sun. But there is nothing in nature that corresponds to a decade—or a century, or a millennium. Those are terms of convenience, determined by the fact that we have ten fingers.

Yet we happily generalize about “the fifties” and “the sixties” as having dramatically distinct, well, entelechies. Decade-thinking is deeply embedded. For most of us, “She’s a seventies person” carries a lot more specific information than “She’s Gen X.” By this light, generations are just a novel way of slicing up the space-time continuum, no more arbitrary, and possibly a little less, than decades and centuries. The question, therefore, is not “Are generations real?” The question is “Are they a helpful way to understand anything?”

Bobby Duffy, the author of “The Generation Myth” (Basic), says yes, but they’re not as helpful as people think. Duffy is a social scientist at King’s College London. His argument is that generations are just one of three factors that explain changes in attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors. The others are historical events and “life-cycle effects,” that is, how people change as they age. His book illustrates, with a somewhat overwhelming array of graphs and statistics, how events and aging interact with birth cohort to explain differences in racial attitudes, happiness, suicide rates, political affiliations—you name it, for he thinks that his three factors explain everything.

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Duffy’s over-all finding is that people in different age groups are much more alike than all the talk about generations suggests, and one reason for all that talk, he thinks, is the consulting industry. He says that, in 2015, American firms spent some seventy million dollars on generational consulting (which doesn’t seem that much, actually). “What generational differences exist in the workplace?” he asks. His answer: “Virtually none.”

Duffy is good at using data to take apart many familiar generational characterizations. There is no evidence, he says, of a “loneliness epidemic” among young people, or of a rise in the rate of suicide. The falling off in sexual activity in the United States and the U.K. is population-wide, not just among the young.

He says that attitudes about gender in the United States correlate more closely with political party than with age, and that, in Europe, anyway, there are no big age divides in the recognition of climate change. There is “just about no evidence,” he says, that Generation Z (1997-2012, encompassing today’s college students) is more ethically motivated than other generations. When it comes to consumer boycotts and the like, “ ‘cancel culture’ seems to be more of a middle-age thing.” He worries that generational stereotypes—such as the characterization of Gen Z-ers as woke snowflakes—are promoted in order to fuel the culture wars.

The woke-snowflake stereotype is the target of “Gen Z, Explained” (Chicago), a heartfelt defense of the values and beliefs of contemporary college students. The book has four authors, Roberta Katz, Sarah Ogilvie, Jane Shaw, and Linda Woodhead—an anthropologist, a linguist, a historian, and a sociologist—and presents itself as a social-scientific study, including a “methodological appendix.” But it resembles what might be called journalistic ethnography: the portrayal of social types by means of interviews and anecdotes.

The authors adopt a key tenet of the pulse hypothesis. They see Gen Z-ers as agents of change, a generation that has created a youth culture that can transform society. (The fact that when they finished researching their book, in 2019, roughly half of Gen Z was under sixteen does not trouble them, just as the fact that at the time of Woodstock, in 1969, more than half the baby-boom generation was under thirteen doesn’t prevent people from making generalizations about the baby boomers.)

Their book is based on hour-long interviews with a hundred and twenty students at three colleges, two in California (Stanford and Foothill College, a well-regarded community college) and one in the U.K. (Lancaster, a selective research university). The authors inform us that the interviewees were chosen “by word of mouth and personal networking,” which sounds a lot like self-selection. It is, in any event (as they unapologetically acknowledge), hardly a randomized sample.

The authors tell us that the interviews were conducted entirely by student research assistants, which means that, unless the research assistants simply read questions off a list, there was no control over the depth or the direction of the interviews. There were also some focus groups, in which students talked about their lives with, mostly, their friends, an exercise performed in an echo chamber. Journalists, or popular ethnographers, would at least have met and observed their subjects. It’s mystifying why the authors felt a need to distance themselves in this way, given how selective their sample was to begin with. We are left with quotations detached from context. Self-reporting is taken at face value.

The authors supplemented the student interviews with a lexical glossary designed to pick out words and memes heavily used by young people, and with two surveys, designed by one of the authors (Woodhead) and conducted by YouGov, an Internet polling company, of eighteen- to twenty-five-year-olds in the United States and the U.K.

Where there is an awkward discrepancy between the survey results and what the college students say in the interviews, the authors attempt to explain it away. The YouGov surveys found that ninety-one per cent of all persons aged eighteen to twenty-five, American and British, identify as male or female, and only four per cent as gender fluid or nonbinary. (Five per cent declined to answer.) This does not match the impression created by the interviews, which suggest that there should be many more fluid and nonbinary young people out there, so the authors say that we don’t really know what the survey respondents meant by “male” and “female.” Well, then, maybe they should have been asked.

The authors attribute none of the characteristics they identify as Gen Z to the imprint of historical events—with a single exception: the rise of the World Wide Web. Gen Z is the first “born digital” generation. This fact has often been used to stereotype young people as screen-time addicts, captives of their smartphones, obsessed with how they appear on social media, and so on. The Internet is their “culture.” They are trapped in the Web. The authors of “Gen Z, Explained” emphatically reject this line of critique. They assure us that Gen Z-ers “understand both the potential and the downside of technology” and possess “critical awareness about the technology that shapes their lives.”

For the college students who were interviewed (although not, evidently, for the people who were surveyed), a big part of Gen Z culture revolves around identity. As the authors put it, “self-labeling has become an imperative that is impossible to escape.” This might seem to suggest a certain degree of self-absorption, but the authors assure us that these young people “are self-identified and self-reliant but markedly not self-centered, egotistical, or selfish.”

“Lily” is offered to illustrate the ethical richness of this new concern. It seems that Lily has a friend who is always late to meet with her: “She explained that while she of course wanted to honor and respect his unique identity, choices, and lifestyle—including his habitual tardiness—she was also frustrated by how that conflicted with her sense that he was then not respecting her identity and preference for timeliness.” The authors do not find this amusing.

The book’s big claim is that Gen Z-ers “may well be the heralds of new attitudes and expectations about how individuals and institutions can change for the better.” They have come up with new ways of working (collaborative), new forms of identity (fluid and intersectional), new concepts of community (diverse, inclusive, non-hierarchical).

Methodology aside, there is much that is refreshing here. There is no reason to assume that younger people are more likely to be passive victims of technology than older people (that assumption is classic old person’s bias), and it makes sense that, having grown up doing everything on a computer, Gen Z-ers have a fuller understanding of the digital universe than analog dinosaurs do. The dinosaurs can say, “You don’t know what you’re missing,” but Gen Z-ers can say, “You don’t understand what you’re getting.”

The claim that addiction to their devices is the cause of a rise in mental disorders among teen-agers is a lot like the old complaint that listening to rock and roll turns kids into animals. The authors cite a recent study (not their own) that concludes that the association between poor mental health and eating potatoes is greater than the association with technology use. We’re all in our own fishbowls. We should hesitate before we pass judgment on what life is like in the fishbowls of others.

The major problem with “Gen Z, Explained” is not so much the authors’ fawning tone, or their admiration for the students’ concerns—“environmental degradation, equality, violence, and injustice”—even though they are the same concerns that almost everyone in their social class has, regardless of age. The problem is the “heralds of a new dawn” stuff.

“A crisis looms for all unless we can find ways to change,” they warn. “Gen Zers have ideas of the type of world they would like to bring into being. By listening carefully to what they are saying, we can appreciate the lessons they have to teach us: be real, know who you are, be responsible for your own well-being, support your friends, open up institutions to the talents of the many, not the few, embrace diversity, make the world kinder, live by your values.”

I believe we have been here before, Captain. Fifty-one years ago, The New Yorker ran a thirty-nine-thousand-word piece that began:

There is a revolution under way . . . It is now spreading with amazing rapidity, and already our laws, institutions, and social structure are changing in consequence. Its ultimate creation could be a higher reason, a more human community, and a new and liberated individual. This is the revolution of the new generation.

The author was a forty-two-year-old Yale Law School professor named Charles Reich, and the piece was an excerpt from his book “The Greening of America,” which, when it came out, later that year, went to No. 1 on the Times best-seller list.

Reich had been in San Francisco in 1967, during the so-called Summer of Love, and was amazed and excited by the flower-power wing of the counterculture—the bell-bottom pants (about which he waxes ecstatic in the book), the marijuana and the psychedelic drugs, the music, the peace-and-love life style, everything.

He became convinced that the only way to cure the ills of American life was to follow the young people. “The new generation has shown the way to the one method of change that will work in today’s post-industrial society: revolution by consciousness,” he wrote. “This means a new way of living, almost a new man. This is what the new generation has been searching for, and what it has started to achieve.”

So how did that work out? The trouble, of course, was that Reich was basing his observations and predictions on, to use Mannheim’s term, a generation unit—a tiny number of people who were hyperconscious of their choices and values and saw themselves as being in revolt against the bad thinking and failed practices of previous generations. The folks who showed up for the Summer of Love were not a representative sample of sixties youth.

Most young people in the sixties did not practice free love, take drugs, or protest the war in Vietnam. In a poll taken in 1967, when people were asked whether couples should wait to have sex until they were married, sixty-three per cent of those in their twenties said yes, virtually the same as in the general population. In 1969, when people aged twenty-one to twenty-nine were asked whether they had ever used marijuana, eighty-eight per cent said no. When the same group was asked whether the United States should withdraw immediately from Vietnam, three-quarters said no, about the same as in the general population.

Most young people in the sixties were not even notably liberal. When people who attended college from 1966 to 1968 were asked which candidate they preferred in the 1968 Presidential election, fifty-three per cent said Richard Nixon or George Wallace. Among those who attended college from 1962 to 1965, fifty-seven per cent preferred Nixon or Wallace, which matched the results in the general election.

The authors of “Gen Z, Explained” are making the same erroneous extrapolation. They are generalizing on the basis of a very small group of privileged people, born within five or six years of one another, who inhabit insular communities of the like-minded. It’s fine to try to find out what these people think. Just don’t call them a generation.

Most of the millions of Gen Z-ers may be quite different from the scrupulously ethical, community-minded young people in the book. Duffy cites a survey, conducted in 2019 by a market-research firm, in which people were asked to name the characteristics of baby boomers, Gen X-ers, millennials (1981-96), and Gen Z-ers. The top five characteristics assigned to Gen Z were: tech-savvy, materialistic, selfish, lazy, and arrogant. The lowest-ranked characteristic was ethical. When Gen Z-ers were asked to describe their own generation, they came up with an almost identical list. Most people born after 1996 apparently don’t think quite as well of themselves as the college students in “Gen Z, Explained” do.

In any case, “explaining” people by asking them what they think and then repeating their answers is not sociology. Contemporary college students did not invent new ways of thinking about identity and community. Those were already rooted in the institutional culture of higher education. From Day One, college students are instructed about the importance of diversity, inclusion, honesty, collaboration—all the virtuous things that the authors of “Gen Z, Explained” attribute to the new generation. Students can say (and some do say) to their teachers and their institutions, “You’re not living up to those values.” But the values are shared values.

And they were in place long before Gen Z entered college. Take “intersectionality,” which the students in “Gen Z, Explained” use as a way of refining traditional categories of identity. That term has been around for more than thirty years. It was coined (as the authors note) in 1989, by the law professor Kimberlé Crenshaw. And Crenshaw was born in 1959. She’s a boomer.

“Diversity,” as an institutional priority, dates back even farther. It played a prominent role in the affirmative-action case of Regents of the University of California v. Bakke, in 1978, which opened the constitutional door to race-conscious admissions. That was three “generations” ago. Since then, almost every selective college has worked to achieve a diverse student body and boasts about it when it succeeds. College students think of themselves and their peers in terms of identity because of how the institution thinks of them.

People who went to college in an earlier era may find this emphasis a distraction from students’ education. Why should they be constantly forced to think about their own demographic profiles and their differences from other students? But look at American politics—look at world politics—over the past five years. Aren’t identity and difference kind of important things to understand?

And who creates “youth culture,” anyway? Older people. Youth has agency in the sense that it can choose to listen to the music or wear the clothing or march in the demonstrations or not. And there are certainly ground-up products (bell-bottoms, actually). Generally, though, youth has the same degree of agency that I have when buying a car. I can choose the model I want, but I do not make the cars.

Failure to recognize the way the fabric is woven leads to skewed social history. The so-called Silent Generation is a particularly outrageous example. That term has come to describe Americans who went to high school and college in the nineteen-fifties, partly because it sets up a convenient contrast to the baby-boom generation that followed. Those boomers, we think—they were not silent! In fact, they mostly were.

The term “Silent Generation” was coined in 1951, in an article in Time —and so was not intended to characterize the decade. “Today’s generation is ready to conform,” the article concluded. Time defined the Silent Generation as people aged eighteen to twenty-eight—that is, those who entered the workforce mostly in the nineteen-forties. Though the birth dates of Time’s Silent Generation were 1923 to 1933, the term somehow migrated to later dates, and it is now used for the generation born between 1928 and 1945.

So who were these silent conformists? Gloria Steinem, Muhammad Ali, Tom Hayden, Abbie Hoffman, Jerry Rubin, Nina Simone, Bob Dylan, Noam Chomsky, Philip Roth, Susan Sontag, Martin Luther King, Jr., Billie Jean King, Jesse Jackson, Joan Baez, Berry Gordy, Amiri Baraka, Ken Kesey, Huey Newton, Jerry Garcia, Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix, Andy Warhol . . . Sorry, am I boring you?

It was people like these, along with even older folks, like Timothy Leary, Allen Ginsberg, and Pauli Murray, who were active in the culture and the politics of the nineteen-sixties. Apart from a few musicians, it is hard to name a single major figure in that decade who was a baby boomer. But the boomers, most of whom were too young then even to know what was going on, get the credit (or, just as unfairly, the blame).

Mannheim thought that the great danger in generational analysis was the elision of class as a factor in determining beliefs, attitudes, and experiences. Today, we would add race, gender, immigration status, and any number of other “preconditions.” A woman born to an immigrant family in San Antonio in 1947 had very different life chances from a white man born in San Francisco that year. Yet the baby-boom prototype is a white male college student wearing striped bell-bottoms and a peace button, just as the Gen Z prototype is a female high-school student with spending money and an Instagram account.

For some reason, Duffy, too, adopts the conventional names and dates of the postwar generations (all of which originated in popular culture). He offers no rationale for this, and it slightly obscures one of his best points, which is that the most formative period for many people happens not in their school years but once they leave school and enter the workforce. That is when they confront life-determining economic and social circumstances, and where factors like their race, their gender, and their parents’ wealth make an especially pronounced difference to their chances.

Studies have consistently indicated that people do not become more conservative as they age. As Duffy shows, however, some people find entry into adulthood delayed by economic circumstances. This tends to differentiate their responses to survey questions about things like expectations. Eventually, he says, everyone catches up. In other words, if you are basing your characterization of a generation on what people say when they are young, you are doing astrology. You are ascribing to birth dates what is really the result of changing conditions.

Take the boomers: when those who were born between 1946 and 1952 entered the workforce, the economy was surging. When those who were born between 1953 and 1964 entered it, the economy was a dumpster fire. It took longer for younger boomers to start a career or buy a house. People in that kind of situation are therefore likely to register in surveys as “materialistic.” But it’s not the Zeitgeist that’s making them that way. It’s just the business cycle. ♦

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Youth culture is the societal norms that shape children, adolescents, and young adults. The norms, values, and symbolic systems shared by this demographic are distinct from those found in adult culture. As a result, there are many theories on the origins, development, and influences of this culture. This article will...

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Youth culture is the shared societal norms of children, adolescents, and young adults. It consists of symbolic systems and processes that are common to this demographic, and differs from adult culture in a number of ways. Let's explore the origins, genesis, and evolving nature of youth culture. The definition of...

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348 Youth Essay Topics & Examples

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🔝 Top 10 Research Topics on Youth Issues

🏆 best youth essay examples, 🔎 argumentative essay topics about youth, ✅ simple & easy youth essay titles, 🥇 youth culture research topics, 📑 good research topics about youth, 📌 most interesting youth topics to write about, ❓ research questions about youth.

In your paper, you might want to focus on important youth issues, such as study problems, physical development, and mental health. Other options include analysing some sociological aspects of youth, exploring youth crime, and focusing on youth culture. In this article, we’ve gathered best research topics on youth issues: argumentative essay topics about youth, youth culture research topics, etc. We’ve also added excellent youth essay examples to inspire you even more!

• How does one’s youth affect their future?
• Youth: rights and limitations
• The youth physical development model
• Legal drinking age in different countries
• Student rights in higher education
• Youth mortality: causes and effects
• Adolescent obesity: how to prevent?
• Young marriages in developing countries
• Youth and political participation worldwide
• Minimum age for employment in the US: should it be changed?
• Empowering Youth Engagement in Society If young people in a given society are not actively involved in important activities in the society they can be destructive and thus negative change in the society. This can be achieved by engaging and […]
• Youth Crime as a Major Issue in the World The relationships that exist in the families of the youths could facilitate the indulgence in criminal activities for example when the parents are involved in crime, when there is poor parental guidance and supervision, in […]
• Modern Technologies and Their Impact on Youth This study presents an analysis of the impacts of the modern technology on the communication skills, personalities and social behaviors of the youth in the technological context that characterizes the network society.
• Youth Issues and Adult Society In most countries, the age of the youth is drawn at the time when an individual is treated equally under the law, normally referred to as the age of majority.
• “Anthem for Doomed Youth” by Wilfred Owen Literature Analysis The events of the past still haunt some of the countries, the relics of the war are still being found in the places of former battlefields, the veterans are being honored and the films about […]
• Youth Unemployment and Policy Solutions The inability to address the problem of unemployment in the given age group may result in the growth of criminal activity, child poverty, and people’s negative perceptions of life.
• Youth Unemployment as a Social Issue Different factors have led to the high levels of youth unemployment, with the most widely studied of them being the skills that are available to the unemployed youths.
• The Main Causes of Youth Violence Access to Guns and the Influence of the Media Shooting is one of the most common forms of youth violence, and guns are the primary weapons of perpetrators.
• Solutions to Effects of Excessive Internet Use on Youth The education system and parents have a major role in the effort to reduce excessive use of the internet among the youth.
• Youth Misbehavior: School and Community Risk Factors The following paper analyzes school- and community-related factors that contribute and sustain adverse behavioral patterns assesses the influence of diversity and multicultural issues that may impact the success of interventions, and explores several possible ways […]
• The Technology Influence on Youth This paper examines some of the main effects of new technologies on adolescents and young people, including deterioration of the physical and mental condition, increased risk of becoming a victim of a fraudster, and the […]
• Youth Crime in Functionalism and Conflict Theories The analysis will focus on determining factors contributing to youth engagement in criminal acts, examining the types of delinquencies they are likely to commit, and establishing the socio-psychological facets associated with the teenagers in the […]
• Youth and Children Ministry What is required is a framework which aids thinking about the task of youth ministry that ensures that Biblical beliefs, values and practices are constantly upheld in our ministry to young people regardless of context.
• Media Violence Effect on Youth and Its Regulation It is also important to note that the more important the media puts on violence, the more people are tempted to engage in it for the sake of attention.
• The Effect of Social Media on Today’s Youth This theory is useful in the explanation of the impact of media during crisis, and will also be useful in the analysis of the impact of social media on the youth of the UAE.
• Youth Crime According to Conflict Theory The second one is that the youth might engage in criminal activities and violence due to misappropriation of resources, lack of jobs, and inadequate strategies to meet their social needs.
• The Influence of Peer Groups on Youth Crime The impact of youth crime on the community is profound, and so is the influence of criminal behavior on the lives of adolescents.
• Contemporary Issues Facing the Youth The paper addresses the issues affecting the youth of today with specific reference to unemployment and health. Solutions: Provision of financial relief to unemployed in the form of Unemployment Insurance System/ Entrepreneurial programs in […]
• Amitai Etzioni: Youth Issues in “Working at McDonald’s” The article, ‘Working at McDonald’s’ by Amitai Etzioni explores the effect of the McDonald’s on students with reference to their studies. The author is against McDonald’s part-time jobs because they do not help the students […]
• Youth Culture and Globalization The focus is also on the relations that exist between the youth and the society, as well as the factors that shape youths identity in terms of culture.
• Youth as the Period in a Person’s Life Youth is both a beautiful and challenging period in a person’s life. Now, living it, I am trying simultaneously to find my purpose and not lose my inner self.
• Social Movements and Youth Activism Research done by Earl unveils that, it is vital to guarantee that young people are actively involved in social movements, and activities in order to encourage active citizenship and build programs that effectively represent their […]
• Western Films Influence on Youth However, there is a concern that its contents may have negative implications on teenagers in the developing countries because of the fundamental differences between the environment presented in the films and what they have in […]
• “Friend of My Youth” by Alice Munro The narrator’s attempts to portray her mother as an active member of the community and tell the story through her eyes indicate a close connection between her and the storyteller.
• Media Portrayal of Youth in Australia The portrayal of youth’s participation in society is a critical factor given the significant role of media in shaping the social concept of youth and the capabilities of young people.
• Do Violent Video Games Contribute to Youth Violence? The violence and aggression that stains the youth of today, as a result of these video games, is unquestionably a cancer that ought to be uprooted or at least contained by parents, school leaders, governments […]
• Sculpture of Victorious Youth The sculpture of the victorious youth is made of bronze and was discovered in the year 1964 in the Adriatic Sea.
• The National Youth Service Corps Schemes in Nigeria Agumagu, Adesope and Njoku note that the core objective of the scheme is to instill in the Nigerian youth “the spirit of selfless service to the community, and emphasize the spirit of oneness and brotherhood […]
• Reasons Behind Youth’s Engagement to Drug Abuse in the 21st Century Although youths in the 21st century engage in drug abuse due to several factors, it suffices to declare factors such as the rising unemployment status, peer pressure, and their hiked tendency to copy their parents’ […]
• Preventing Risky Sexual Behavior Among Youth The nation also losses productive people due to time wasted time and death of young people The two best strategies to effect change at the community level is through media and policy.
• Impact of Digital Drug and Electronic Addiction on UAE Youth Therefore, the primary purpose of this dissertation is to determine the impact of digital drugs and the electronic addiction they cause on the youth of the UAE to highlight the existing problem in society.
• Detailed Plan to Attract Youth on Stock Market Investment The management of Abu Dhabi Securities Exchange may consider starting mentorship programs, which target young people in this society in order to attract them to the stock market.
• Asian Youth Gangs Analysis Like most other forms of gangs, younger children are more easily persuaded to join than the older crowd as most of the time it is the leaders of each gang that are in there twenties […]
• Cultural Awareness Among the Arab Youth In fact, the course and consequences of political, social and economic transformations currently undulating across the Arab world championed by the Arab youths present an opportunity to understand the cultural values that need to be […]
• Understanding Youth: Consumption, Gender, and Education Thus, because young people represent the specific social group, it is important to reflect on such issues typical for the development of the youth as the questions of consumption, gender, and education.
• Drug Abuse Among the Youth Essentially, this case study will allow the evaluation of the prevailing cases of drug abuse among the youth. In this regard, the pain and peer pleasure cannot be persevered to allow an explicit cure of […]
• Youth’s Aggression and Social Media The problem is in the fact that posts and messages in social media that have followed shootings include images, slogans, and texts provoking violence and aggressive behaviors in young people, and more attention should be […]
• Comprehensive Sex Education: Empowering Youth for Informed and Healthy Choices In addition to providing young people with the facts about sex and sexual health, it is also important for sex education to address issues related to consent, sexual harassment, and sexual assault.
• Socio-Psychological Trust Issues in Youth The truth is that behaviors associated with distrust, such as trust issues and paranoia, are high in the younger generation toward their peers and fundamental social institutions in the Western hemisphere, and these continue to […]
• Western Pop Culture and Street Fashion of Japanese Youth The research of the topic needs to be preceded by the explanation of the key subjects and notions used in the current paper.
• The Golden Age of Youth and Freedom However, it is interesting to compare it to the story which took place at the dawn of the cultural and sexual revolution in Chinese society.
• Unhealthy Lifestyle Among the Singapore Youth The purpose of this report was to identify the reason for the continued unhealthy lifestyle among the Singapore youth despite the government’s efforts to promote healthier diets and lifestyles and find viable solutions to the […]
• Exploring The Concept of Youth Cultures Accordingly, the focal concern of this paper has been to accurately comprehend the concept of youth culture and to find out the exact means of finding meaning to the youth identity on the background of […]
• Premarital Sex Attitudes Among Youth and Adults The purpose of the report is to find out the similarities and differences in people’s treatment of the issue. 20% of females considered premarital sex the major reason for undesired pregnancy and abortions.
• Morality, Faith, and Dignity in Modern Youth The blistering evolution of society combined with the appearance of new opportunities resulted in the significant deterioration of moral and values which determine the nature of human actions.
• Social Networks and Youth Empowerment The increasing use of the sites has made them good places to train and advertise for various youth programs and activities; ministries of youth have realized the new way of approaching the young and they […]
• Promoting the Importance of Healthy Living in Singapore Youth Community This information proves that it is necessary to identify how the Singapore youth community can benefit from the promotion of healthy living.
• Youth-Led NGOs in Brunei Darussalam Within the past three decades, the youth in Brunei Darussalam has been on the frontline to identify the trends recorded in different parts of the world in an attempt to implement similar practices in the […]
• Poor Kids: The Impact of Poverty on Youth Nevertheless, the environment of constant limitations shapes the minds of children, their dreams and the paths they pursue in life, and, most importantly, what they make of themselves.
• “The Wife of His Youth” Short Story by Chesnutt This is the case with Charles Chestnutt’s short story “The Wife of His Youth” in which the significant disruption of life experienced by the institution of slavery and the Civil War is illustrated through the […]
• Youth Sports: Negative Effects This type of social exclusion can be ascribed not only to the negative impact of youth sports but also to the inefficiency of educators.
• Youth Unemployment in Africa: A Challenge for Public Policy Makers With a large population to take care of the market for labour is overstretched from Johannesburg to Tangiers and cannot accommodate the influx of young job seekers leading to shortage or in some cases the […]
• Youth Drug Abuse Among, Education, and Policies Although drug abuse encompasses improper use of drugs disregarding the prescriptions of medical practitioners, the principal challenges of drug abuse occasion from abuse of drugs such as cocaine, heroin, and marijuana.
• Youth Leadership Development However, the exclusion of certain groups of people from the democratic process does not contribute to the flourishment of a system that hinges on the belief that “the operation and ownership of power” are essential […]
• Tourism and Leisure for Youth Target Market This is imperative as the pages provide a forum for potential tourists to identify a company that deals with the tour and travel activities through pictorial displays. For the youths, tourism or travel activities involve […]
• Analysis of My Community and Youth Programs The significant challenge lies in the development of programs that meet the developmental needs of the youth. A third program in California involves improving the quality of education in the state.
• Mental Health Issues Among LGBTQ (Queer) Youth Studies point to multiple factors that play a role in the risk of suicide among LGBTQ youth, such as gender, socioeconomic status, bullying, and school experience. There is a need for further research and interventions […]
• Non-Consensual Intimate Image Distribution in Youth That is the reason why the topic of an article called Young People Just Resolve It in Their Own Group is relevant and needs to be discussed. This paper aims to analyze the article and […]
• Religion and Culture: Immigrant and Minority Youth Religion is a fundamental way people experience and comprehend the world if culture describes how people perceive and comprehend the world.
• Suicide Among Youth as a Worldwide Issue The world needs to pay more attention to this issue because of the many young lives that society loses and the socioeconomic and psychological effects suicide causes.
• The Urgent Problem of Doping in Youth Sports: Solutions and Impact The solution to the problems is for the states to become more careful about the allocation of financial resources in the field of sports.
• Jamaica’s Unemployment and Positive Youth Development Although a recent positive trend in decreasing levels of joblessness is apparent as the country revitalizes its main source of income, the problem of the high level of unemployment among youth is persistent.
• Gender and Sexuality in Community Youth Work The primary duty of a youth worker enshrines competently rendering services to the public regardless of gender identity and sexual orientation.
• The Youth Criminal Justice Act in Teresa Robinson’s Case 1 of the YCJA is relevant to the article since the offender’s name is still unreported despite the evidence of his involvement in the homicide.
• Radicalization of British Youth Into Violent Extremism: The Role of Salafist Ideology Salafism believes that the most principal and genuine type of Islam might originate in the existence of the initial, honorable ages of Muslims known as the Salaf, who lived near the Prophet Muhammad in both […]
• Sex Variations in the Oral Microbiomes of Youths With Severe Periodontitis The periodontium provides nutrition to the hard tissues of the tooth and the alveolar process – the part of the jaw in which the tooth sockets are located, and it also tightly holds the tooth […]
• The Youth Justice Strategy Action Plan 2019–21 The Youth Justice Strategy Action Plan 2019 21 marks a crucial turning point in our effort to improve the juvenile justice system and lower the number of juvenile offenders and repeat offenders in Queensland.
• The University of Maryland’s Youth Sports Program To show the importance of youth sports programs, the report will focus on secondary research to depict the imbalance of academics and sports in the current curriculum used by many schools.
• Program to Tackle Drug Addiction Among Youth The core area of emphasis will be training the students on different ways to avoid the temptations of using drugs in order to lower the rate of addiction.
• Eating Disorder Among Youth and Its Aspects It is due to the fact that often the above sociological factors cause the development of psychological issues, especially among young people.
• Impaired Communication Amongst Youth The paper on ADHD is the research by Yuen-han and Chan who cite the most recent findings in the field and provide a set of recommendations for youth diagnosed with this condition.
• Retention of Youth by Indian Church of God A case study approach gives a chance to assess how strong the impact of the Indian Church of God is and to evaluate the role of individual members of the church, in particular, the senior […]
• Issue of Youth Homelessness in Canada The third and fourth factors, the lack of education and unemployment, are interconnected, resulting in inconsistent and low income and the inability to afford proper housing.
• Mentoring Youth: Trends and Tradition Considering the information provided in the text, the author’s primary research question concerns the fact what contemporary models of mentorship might be of relevance in the given environment and how these schemes could be implemented […]
• Substance Use Prevention Among Youth The strategy based on substance use prevention includes a number of tasks to follow to ensure the success of the intervention.
• Suicidal Thoughts Among LGBTQ Youth: Client’s Case Assessment The therapist must exercise special caution and delicacy while evaluating the factors related to the case and engaging the LGBTQ client in the process of treatment.
• The Use of Psychoactive Substances by LGBT Youth The purpose of this survey is to identify how reliable the information is that LGBT community adolescents are more likely to use psychoactive substances than heterosexual youth.
• The Problems of Youth Participation in Sports in the United States According to Atencio and Wright, the main issue covered in youth sports participation in the United States revolves around the relationship between the African American culture and basketball.
• The Role of Adults in Supporting the Youth Who Play Sports To reduce concerns and enjoy the chosen area of interest, one should recognize the role of adults in supporting youth to play sports.
• Guaranteeing Safety in Youth Mental Medical Services Centers There is expanding acknowledgment of the drawn-out effect of youth psychological well-being issues and the requirement for a more organized reaction in the US.
• Gang Culture of Latino Male Youth According to the authors, an occupational viewpoint is vital in inspecting how the exceptional context of a person’s life and location can affect the kind of professions which they are a part of.
• Gun Violence and Its Effect on Youth As a matter of fact, the intersection of gun violence and domestic violence has the biggest impact on youth almost 60% of young people affected by gun violence every year are affected by homicides.
• The Loneliness Pandemic in American Youth Loneliness contributes to poor health and unhealthy lifestyles such as social media addiction and damaging activities. Causes of loneliness include feelings of alienation, minimal physical interactions with others, differences in hobbies and lifestyles, and few […]
• Indian Youth Against Racism: Photo Analysis The main cause of racism within American societies is the high superiority complex possessed by the white individuals living with the Asian American in the society.
• Competency-Based Model for Youth Leadership Development in the UAE Governmental Organizations In the past, those in position of power would use coercion to ensure that they get the support of the followers.
• Youth Violence in Schools Paraphrase of the above quotation: The media desensitizes violence and increases aggressive and antisocial behavior, despite this, most youths are constantly exposed to violence and gore in the virtual world which is where they spend […]
• Should Florida’s School Resource Officers Get Permission to Use Tasers on Youths? Since the use of Tasers is unavoidable, there is the need to ensure the most efficient use of Tasers while minimizing the risks of health complications or death.
• Implementation of a Public Health Campaign on STDS Among the Youth A number of strategies will be used to actualize the envisaged public health campaign on STDs among the youth. Social media will be used to influence the behavior of the youth in relation to STDs.
• The Problem of Homeless Youths With HIV-AIDS Studies carried out in the city of New York in 2008 showed that 21 percent of homeless youth males and 24 percent of homeless female youths had “more than 100 lifetime partners”. 5 percent of […]
• Youth Crime Statistics in the US In 2000, the youth crime rate in juvenile court for drug offenses and public law offenses showed an increase with the age of the youth convict.
• Sexual Behavior Among Underserved Minority Youth Through IMB Model This article suggests, as one of the options for identifying the determinants and predictors of such behavior, using the information-motivation-behavior model or the IMB.
• P-Plan Proposal: Youth, Adult and Elderly Abuse To ensure that equality and sanity is maintained, the government normally has some set rules and regulations that have to be adhered to.
• The Effect of Communicative Means on Youth in Egypt Unfortunately, the modern media is filled with hatred and false claims, which are not filtered and negatively impact youth in Egypt.
• Modern Communicative Means Effect on the Youth in Egypt For the young people of Egypt, modern communication methods open the opportunity for global integration, which is a key factor in the development of societies at the present stage.
• Youth and Women’s Empowerment in the Economy, Education and Culture Strategy in UAE In March 2015, the Ministry of Culture and Knowledge Development and the General Authority of Sports launched the Youth Empowerment Strategy to empower the government and young Emiratis to collaborate on achieving Vision 2021.
• The ‘Street Games’ Athletic Intervention to Reduce Youth Crime With this announcement, and the creation of the mayor’s Steering Group to address the issue in the urban center, the role of sport in combatting the youth crime epidemic was thrown into the spotlight.
• Sexuality Problem Among Japanese Youth For instance, the impact of economic stagnation, the effects of the tsunami, and the radioactive crisis influenced people’s minds. Moreover, anime promotes the issue of “hikikomori,” which means a person’s choice to stay isolated and […]
• This Is Our Youth by Kenneth Lonergan The exploration of the difficulties that occur during the transition from adolescence to adulthood is the key message of the play.
• Attitude of Youths Towards Entrepreneurship in UAE Studies have attempted to identify factors that impact the attitudes of youths towards entrepreneurship in the UAE. Investigating the attitude of youths towards entrepreneurship in UAE is significant in studies related to it.
• Some Youth Sports Are Too Intense With a rapid increase of physical achievement requirements and the variety of sports activities, adolescents become involved in sports and disregard the adverse effects of intensity they encounter.
• How Does Cultural Continuity Play a Role in Youth Suicide Rates Among Indigenous People in Canada? In conclusion, it is possible to mention that there is a direct connection between youth suicide rates among Indigenous people in Canada and cultural continuity.
• Anxiety and Depression in Hispanic Youth in Monmouth County Therefore, the Health Project in Monmouth County will help Hispanic children and adolescents between the ages of 10 and 19 to cope with anxiety and depression through behavioral therapy.
• The Reducing and Preventing Suicide Attempts Among the Youth As a result, this study included a pre-test in order to compare the intervention and control before and after the program.
• Youths’ Career Choices in Individualist and Collectivist Societies To study the influence of the different types of societies on young adults’ career aspirations, it is important to establish the distinct features of individualistic and collectivistic approaches to the issue.
• Radicalization Among Youth: Causes and Solutions In this paper, the research topic focuses on the causes and solutions of radicalization among the youths. As a result, it has been chosen to make the determinations in regard to the question of what […]
• Evaluating Youth Work With Vulnerable Young People The key determining factor in the choice of an evaluation model is the type and nature of the parameter to be evaluated.
• Social Innovations. Opportunities for Youth One of the ways which have been identified to help in the empowerment of the youth is through the youth social initiatives.
• The Prevalence of Vaping Among Youths in Ireland This paper aims to analyze the prevalence of vaping among youths in Ireland, the primary causes of vaping, its health effects, and a recommendation for the appropriate approach to prevent e-cigarette use in Ireland.
• Employment Programs for Unemployed Youth in the MENA The average youth unemployment rate in these countries was 27 percent back in 2008, the highest of any region in the world.
• Juvenile and Youth Gangs However, in order to understand what society can do to save juvenile gang members, it is paramount to understand why the youth join these gangs and the key issues associated with juvenile gangs.
• Consumptions of Fast Foods Among Youth in Saudi Arabia However, little research has focused on the factors that lead to the increased consumption of fast foods in Saudi Arabia among these groups of people.
• Youth and Sexual Violence Analysis Youth and sexual violence are some of the categories incorporated in the general topic of violence. However various strategies have been incorporated in a bid to the upward trend of violence.
• Intergenerational Partnerships in the Youth The study illustrates the utility of process evaluation methods for improving a new violence prevention program, Youth Empowerment Solutions for Peaceful Communities.
• Youths Transitioning Foster Care System These problems have led to the necessity of occupational therapy in the foster care systems where they enable the young people aging out of foster care to deal with these issues.
• Rate of Pregnancy Among Youths in Australia In most cases, the high rate of teenage pregnancy is a result of poor parenting and lack of sex education in the country.
• Community Initiatives to Deal With Gang Violence Among the Youth This paper is a study of the activities that the members of the community can engage in to assist this process.
• “Youth Gangs in American Society” by Tracy et al. The authors also identify some of the major issues and factors encouraging the youth to join different gangs. The book explores “the use of unremittingly tough policies in order to deal with crime and youth […]
• Asthma in School Going Youth: Effects and Management The control and prevention of adverse effects of asthma are goals of managing asthma as stated in the National Asthma Education and Preventive Program asthma treatment guidelines.
• Alcohol Advertising and Youth This has been achieved by analyzing the relationship graphs of alcohol consumption versus advertising, as well as bans on advertising. One of them is that it only focuses on advertising as the only influencer of […]
• The Social Environments and the Effectiveness of Youth HIV Prevention It is saddening that most of the youth view sex education negatively since their elders have socialized them to view it as a curse.
• Youth Justice Conferencing as a Government Hybrid Technique The main rationale of introducing the youth justice conferencing is to provide for a safe and conducive environment in which both the offender and the victim are given equal opportunity to present facts about the […]
• Marginalized Youths in Australia This conflict mainly between the police and these minority youths as Cunneen explains, has been caused by the unequal distribution of the country’s resources; the pursuit of social networks and the massive youth unemployment which […]
• Family and Community Violence Exposure Among Youth In fact, the harmful effect of violence reflects on the surviving ability of the society.”Violence is among the leading causes of death for people aged 15-44 years worldwide, accounting for 14% of deaths among males […]
• Behavior Modification as an Intervention to Enhance School and Training Attendance at Manson Youth Institution The process attempts to create a dialogue between the two and this has resulted in increased satisfaction for the victim, the offender ostensibly feels accountable for his actions and there is also lesser recidivism.
• Communication Final Project: Youth Activism, Social Media, and Political Change Through Children’s Books Picture the Dream was an unconventional exhibition of children’s picture books related to the topic of the Civil Rights Movement and was held in the High Museum of Art.
• Social Media Efficiency in Decreasing Youth Alcohol Consumption The purpose of this paper is to discuss the effects and efficiency of social media in raising awareness of alcohol as a health risk factor and decreasing alcohol consumption among youth.
• Civil and Political Engagement in Youth The paper highlights the lack of research on the political context and alternate means of civic engagement used by the young generation.
• Youth-Led Activism and Political Engagement in New Zealand As the authors admit themselves, this choice of topic was due to the article being a part of a larger research project on the organization’s activism in New Zealand.
• Kids and Youth Homelessness: Facts and Statistics in the United States There have been numerous government interventions in the form of policies since the times of the Great Depression, but the number of homeless children and teenagers has only increased.
• Parent-Teacher-Youth Mediation Program Analysis Firstly, the parent-child communication quality will be evaluated within the framework of the characteristics of their relationships and the ability to manage the conflicting situation.
• Unruly Youth in Urban Environments. Analysis In the end, marginalization forces both the protagonist of the film and the residents of favelas to illegal activities, such as violence and participating in drug trafficking.
• Youth Empowerment in the UAE The UAE seeks to increase civic responsibility and leadership skills of youth because young people are considered to be an essential resource for the development of the country.
• Career Motivation of Youth Professional Activity: RAKBANK At the same time, the orientation of the personnel policy of RAKBANK is the qualification and role of personnel in the implementation of strategic tasks.
• Family Factors and Youth Suicide This, in turn, is fraught with the loss of contact between a child and parents and is a driver that prompts teenagers to seek a way out in suicidal thoughts.
• Hardships of African-American Youths in the Singleton’s “Boyz N the Hood” The community that is filled with crime and corruption is a cesspool and is hard to avoid. His father, Furious, grew up in a harsh environment and so, he explains to Tre that the life […]
• Critical Analysis of Purpose Driven Youth Ministry by Doug Fields It is also evident that the role of the parent in the life of a youth in the church is present in Chapter 4 of the book.
• Youth & Society Review In the following paper I have my goal to review the article by Robert Crosnoe, Kristan Glasgow Ericson and Sanford Dornbusch about the factors reducing and moderating the impact of deviating friendships among the adolescent […]
• Deaf Youth: Social Justice Through Media and Activism The Deaf Youth USA for instance strives to educate, inspire, and empower the deaf youth to make difference in the communities.
• A Community Development Plan for Youth 15-18 Years in Kenyan Kibera Slum The outspoken challenge facing youth in most of the developing nations has been lack of employment to absorb the large numbers of the unemployed youth loitering along the streets.
• Owen’s “Dulce et Decorum Est” and “Anthem for Doomed Youth” The title is, in itself, ironic, for anthems have always meant to sing praises about grand things like love and patriotism, and so at first glance the poem seems to praise the damnation of the […]
• Employability of Youths in the US When there is high supply of the youths, their demand by the employers will be less or the rules of the employment will fluctuate and mostly to the advantage of the employer.
• Philosophy of Youth Ministry and Spirituality The sole aim for the formation of the youth ministry is to encourage the young people to learn more about their faith and engage themselves in spirituality.
• Youth Wages in Australia and Their Advantages This assignment addresses on the advantages of having youth wages increment in Australia, and if the regime of this state should retain the wage arrangements which mainly targets the younger generation under the age of […]
• “The Illogic of Youth Driving Culture” by Tilleczek However, all of the literature included is of recent origin and revolves within the time frame of 10 years and it presents a thorough outline of the problem and the possible solution.
• Youth Issue: Teen Pregnancy Only when the parents of these teenagers openly discuss sexuality and the harmful effects of teen pregnancy with their teenagers are they most likely to understand the risks involved with sex and pregnancy and thus […]
• Youth Prostitution in America The scope of this paper revolves around the reasons why children engage in such activities, the stats about children who do, the consequences of youth prostitution and a review of the different strategies adopted, and […]
• Appropriate Sentence for Violent Youth Youth justice law needs more attention and participation of the government to prevent the rates of juvenile delinquency within the society.
• Rachel’s Challenges and Its Benefits to the Youth. Columbine School Shooting If told in the right context, tone and by a person who really understands the predicament, Rachel’s challenges are bound to have a profound effect on students and inspire them to spread the dream that […]
• Youth Crime and Punishment If the law enforcers have voted it in and made sure it is in action the why is the crime rates among the youth taking its toll in the society.
• Two Leadership Experiences That Was Significant to Me as a Leader of a Youth Group Leadership qualities are important in that, they create a chance for the leaders to evaluate the effectiveness of any suggestion proposed to them by the members of the team they are leading.
• Asian and Latino Youths Identity Problems The fact is that the part of the family already lives in USA or that most of the young males of the local towns normally immigrate to the north and now is a path to […]
• American Youth: Consumerism and Consumption Issues Therefore, advertisements are used to create awareness to the public about products and services that are available in the market. This is because the teenagers believe the slogans that are used in advertisements and they […]
• Homophile Youth Movement Flier They wanted the homosexuals to understand and make others understand that their being homosexual means that they are emotionally attached to their own sex.
• Youth and Maturity as Stages in Human Life They have the right to fight for there fundamental rights for they are mature and they can be in a position to take care of themselves.
• Youth Professional and National Occupational Standards This is a paper is that is discussing the efficiency and appropriateness of a manger and his idea of dealing with the human resources to get the best of the results and to make the […]
• The Concept of ‘Youth’ in Relation to Current Policy Changes in social trends are one of the triggers for an examination of the causes of policymaking in relation to youth in the present day.
• Internet Drawbacks Upon Youth Of course this has created ease for us but at the same time have we considered the fact even for a while that what has been our younger generation up to with this new ‘blessing’? […]
• How Should Youth Combat Negative Moral Influences? The greatest protection against what one considers as a negative moral influence is: If the federal laws do not allow certain actions then it is so for the benefit of an individual and the society.
• Youth Crime. Prejudice: Is It Justified? The reason behind the criminal prejudice is of course the variations of cultures in context with the ‘Multicultural environment’. And while the image of the young offender has certainly changed in appearance over the second […]
• Smoking and Youth Culture in Germany The report also assailed the Federal Government for siding the interest of the cigarette industry instead of the health of the citizens.
• How Social Factors Shape Youth Subcultures
• The First Aid Knowledge of Youth Soccer Coaches
• High-Intensity Interval Training Program for Youth
• Youth Resilience Across Seven South African Sites
• Songs of Delaware County Youth Orchestra Concert
• Youth Crime in Barry Jenkins’ “Moonlight” Film
• National Security Language Initiative for Youth Program
• Does Youth Sports Play a Part in Character Formation?
• Behavioral Youth Counselor’s Self-Assessment
• Reducing the Alcohol Abuse Among the Youth
• Personal Values Importance in Child and Youth Care
• Child, Youth and Family Intervention
• Youth Subcultures Causing Moral Panic in Media
• Outdoor Activity Sport Business for Women and Youth
• Canadian Youth Business Foundation Website Analysis
• Youth Sports and Its Role in Character Formation
• Youth Sports Role in Character Formation
• Safe Driving Among American Youth as Health Issue
• “Why Youth (Heart) Social Network Sites” by Danah Boyd
• Youth Suicide Prevention: Health Promotion Plan
• Social Behaviour as a Science: Drug Abuse in Youth
• HIV Prevention in Youth: Public Health Campaign
• Implications of Youth Violence
• Youth Texting Research Dissemination Strategy
• Child and Youth Care Perspective on Disability
• Youth Gang Prevention Continuum in Society
• Culturally Grounded Drug Prevention: The Hoʻouna Pono Curriculum for Rural Hawaii
• A New Weapon Used Against Youth
• Pop Cultural Influence on American Youth
• American Youth in Films Since 1980s
• Relationship Between Caregivers and Behavior of Youth
• Kuwaiti Youth Activities and Sociopolitical Role
• Youth Demonstrating Truant Behavior
• Troubled Children and Youth
• Culture in “Youth Media”by Bill Osgerby
• How Does Obesity Affect African American Youth?
• Internet Gambling and Its Impact on the Youth
• Social Media Hazards for Youth
• Perception of Childhood and Youth Through History
• Youth Cultures and Moral Panic
• Korean Pop Music and Youth Identity
• Muslim Youth Redefining Leadership by N. Hussain
• Chinese Youth Sexual Culture
• Cyberbullying and Its Impacts on Youths Today
• “Let Teenagers Try Adulthood” by Leon Botstein – Youth Issues
• Computer Apps for Productive Endeavors of Youth
• Media and Youth Violence
• Hip Hop Music as Media Influence on the Youth
• Doctors’, Government and Youth Views
• Youth Issues: Student Differences
• Youth Issues: Video Games Effects
• Youth With Autism Disorder: Education and Employment
• Handling a Depressed Youth
• Rural–Urban Migration and Youth in Bhutan
• Lessons of Wisdom From Seniors to Youth
• The Youth Unemployment Crisis in Spain
• Sexual Health Education: The Issue of Necessity and Effectiveness of Youth Policies
• Does Violence in Video Games Affect Youth?
• Youth Popular Cultures and Music
• Why Kuwaiti Youth are Reluctant About Using Public Libraries
• The Role of the Youth Leader
• Ajyal Film Festival and Youth Empowerment
• Youth Violence: Prevalence and Trends
• Somerset Rural Youth Project
• Somerset Rural Youth Project – Quality Assurance
• Youth Unemployment in UK and Talent Management Challenges
• Youth Arts and the Regulation of Subjectivity
• Youth Antisocial Behaviour: Britain
• The Effect of Health and Wellbeing on Australian Youth
• Youth Issues: The State of Children’s Rights in UAE
• ‘Youth, Adult and Elderly Miracle Centre’
• Marketing Sports Drinks: What They Don’t Tell the Youth
• HIV and AIDS Prevention Among the Youth in Asia
• Gangsta Rap Music as Social Culture in the Journal of Youth Studies by Alexander Riley
• Public Policy on Youth Gambling
• Django Paris on Humanizing Research in a Multiethnic Youth Community
• How Social Media Network Can Change the Attitude of Australian Youth
• Program Outcomes in a Non-Profit Organization Serving at Risk Youth in an Urban Metropolitan Area
• Contrast of Youth Employment Methods Between American and Other Countries
• Factors Affecting Youth’s Behaviors Towards Purchasing a Smartphone
• Archery and Fencing as Youth’s Sports Programs
• Putting Out the Fires: Will Higher Taxes Reduce the Onset of Youth Smoking?
• Youth, Crime, and Violence
• Drug Abuse: Awareness Amongst the Youths
• The Weekly Article Analysis on Motivating the Aging and Youthful Workforces
• New Media and Popular Youth Culture in China
• The Changing Relationship Between the Generations’ Youth Studies Australia
• Definition of Alcohol Misuse (Alcohol Abuse and Addiction) in Youth Population Age 18-29
• Youth Culture in the Last 20-30 Years: New York, London and Tokyo
• Foods That Are Being Served to Our Youth in the School System
• Connection Between Child Maltreatment and Youth Violence
• The Concept of Community Development to the Homeless Youths in Australia
• Youth Culture Under the Globalization Time
• Police-Youth Relations/Community Policing and Young Offenders
• Marked Language in Multiracial Youth
• Police-Youth Relations and Community Policing
• Child and Youth Care Counselor
• Violent Video Games and How They Affect Youth Violence
• Child Welfare in the Together Youth Shelter
• The Main Cause of Increasing Violent Behavior Among Youths Is Violence in the Media
• Deviance: Social Problems of Youth Gangs
• Youth Services: The Review. When Youth Development Theories Prove Right
• Underlying Causes That Push the Youths Into Crime
• Youth Unemployment in the UK
• Youth Culture Under Globalization
• How Social Network Empowers Youths in the Society
• The Sexual Practices in the Youths
• The Youth Issues of Burden Tackling
• How Extensive Is the Drug Problem Among American Youth Today?
• A Project on Establishment of Housing Flats Voluntary Counselling and Testing Centers in Njoro to Reduce Prevalence of HIV/AIDS
• School Is Bad for Children: Making Mistakes and Being Wrong
• Hip Hop Influence on Youth: Statistics and Effects
• How to Reduce the Purchase of Counterfeit “Knockoffs” by College Age Youth (18-24 Years Old)
• Professional Issues for Child and Youth Care Practitioners in School Based Settings
• What Is the Latest Fad Among the Youth of India?
• What Is the Biggest Problem Facing the Youth Today?
• What Do Older People Regret About Their Youth?
• What Are the Responsibilities of Youth?
• What Are General Seminar Topics That Attract Youth?
• How Can Conservatives Win Back America’s Youth From Progressives?
• What Is So Painful About the Indian Youth Today?
• What Are the Youth Problems?
• What Do You Think Is the Most Critical Issue Facing the Youth of Today?
• What Does the Pakistani Youth Think About the Indian Economy?
• What Are the Influences of Media Over the Youth?
• What Is the Role of the Youth in Eradication of Corruption?
• Why Is Youth Unemployment So High in Europe?
• What Are Some Issues Among Youth Today That We Can Discuss?
• Should Youth Get Involved in Politics?
• What Is the Impact of Cinema on Our Youth?
• How Does Poverty Lead to the HIV/Aids Infection Among the Youth?
• What Are the Impact of Technology on Youth?
• What Are Two Practical Solutions for Each of the Four Youth Risk Behavior?
• Does University Really Help Our Youth?
• How Does Miley Cyrus’ Actions and Attitudes Affect the Youth of Today?
• How Hiphop Has Changed the Youth in Society?
• How Much Impact Did Youth Culture Have on Society in the Years 1955-75?
• How Violent Video Games Really Affect the Youth?
• What Are the Social Causes of Youth Crime?
• What Impact Does Internet Have On Today’s Youth?
• What Is the Role of Youth in Politics?
• What Differences of the Youth Today Are From the Past?
• Why Don’t the Youth Nowadays Prefer Farming?
• What Are the Causes of the Massive Youth Unemployment in Spain?
• Children’s Rights Research Ideas
• Suicide Prevention Paper Topics
• Teenage Pregnancy Paper Topics
• Subculture Research Topics
• School Violence Ideas
• Puberty Titles
• Foster Care Titles
• Juvenile Delinquency Essay Titles
• Chicago (A-D)
• Chicago (N-B)

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Article contents

Youth and media culture.

• Stuart R. Poyntz Stuart R. Poyntz Simon Fraser University
• , and  Jennesia Pedri Jennesia Pedri Simon Fraser University
• https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780190264093.013.75
• Published online: 24 January 2018

Media in the 21st century are changing when, where, what, and how young people learn. Some educators, youth researchers, and parents lament this reality; but youth, media culture, and learning nevertheless remain entangled in a rich set of relationships today. These relationships and the anxieties they produce are not new; they echo worries about the consequences of young people’s media attachments that have been around for decades.

These anxieties first appeared in response to the fear that violence, vulgarity, and sexual desire in early popular culture was thought to pose to culture. Others, however, believed that media could be repurposed to have a broader educational impact. This sentiment crept into educational discourses throughout the 1960s in a way that would shift thinking about youth, media culture, and education. For example, it shaped the development of television shows such as Sesame Street as a kind of learning portal. In addition to the idea that youth can learn from the media, educators and activists have also turned to media education as a more direct intervention. Media education addresses how various media operate in and through particular institutions, technologies, texts, and audiences in an effort to affect how young people learn and engage with media culture. These developments have been enhanced by a growing interest in a broad project of literacy. By the 1990s and 2000s, media production became a common feature in media education practices because it was thought to enable young people to learn by doing , rather than just by analyzing or reading texts. This was enabled by the emergence of new digital media technologies that prioritize user participation.

As we have come to read and write media differently in a digital era, however, a new set of problems have arisen that affect how media cultures are understood in relation to learning. Among these issues is how a participatory turn in media culture allows others, including corporations, governments, and predatory individuals, to monitor, survey, coordinate, and guide our activities as never before. Critical media literacy education addresses this context and continues to provide a framework to address the future of youth, media culture and learning.

• media culture
• media literacy
• consumer culture

Introduction

It would be absurd for teenagers today to forgo the Internet as a resource for schoolwork and learning experiences of all sorts. Whether to research an essay, acquire new skills, find an expert, watch a video clip, or contribute a blog post, the Internet is often the first source that students turn to pick up new information, to access useful networks, or to find resources that they need to accomplish whatever it is they want to learn. And why wouldn’t it be? The Internet is now a digital learning economy populated by YouTube and Vimeo channels, social media sites like Wikipedia, software and learning games, library data archives, learning television shows, documentaries, massive open online courses (MOOCs), and assorted other resources that are changing when, where, what, and how young people learn. Some educators, youth researchers, and parents lament this reality (Bakan, 2011 ; Louv, 2008 ), but today’s youth, media culture, and learning are nevertheless entangled in a rich set of relationships.

These relationships and the anxieties that they produce are not new. Since the earliest decades of the 20th century , learning dynamics have been thought to be integral to the way youth and media cultures weave together. But these relationships are vexed; the connections among youth lives, media, and education are sites of tremendous anxiety and concern around the world. Yet learning is now such a profoundly mediated experience that traditional dichotomies separating education and entertainment, work and leisure, expert and nonexpert, and pedagogy and everyday life are no longer helpful.

In this article, we examine this context and address how relations among youth, media culture, and learning have been understood since the turn of the last century. Our story begins in the Anglo-American world, but it has quickly become global as media and youth cultures expand around the world. We highlight the anxieties and panics common to thinking about media in young people’s lives and indicate where and how the mediation of youth learning has been taken up to support progressive ends through the development of novel resources, institutions, and pedagogies that nurture young people’s agency, identities, and citizenship. Our survey examines how specific media forms, including film, television, and Web design, have been calibrated to support young people’s learning through the media, and the development of media literacy education to promote critical learning about the media. To conclude, we detail three major problematics that continue to shape the relationships among youth, media culture, and learning.

Teen Screens

Teenagers graduating from high school in 2017 across the global North and much of the global South have always known smart mobile devices, social media, and YouTube, near-constant data surveillance, the ability to Google facts as needed, and texting, messaging, and posting as part of the regular rhythms of daily life. While many statistics have been collected over the years about the time that adolescents spend immersed in media, the general impression is that most children and youth are more involved than ever with media technologies and content. A new area of children’s and youth media has emerged in recent years. It is a world where the Internet, mobile devices, and “television,” now consumed across multiple platforms, compete for attention alongside older media (i.e., radio, appointment television, and movies). Various studies conducted in recent years have sought to understand these developments, with particular attention given to investigating the role of the Internet, social media, smartphones, and mobile technologies in young people’s lives. Regular television and radio continue to hold a place among teenagers’ media choices, and along with mobile phones, they are part of a primary youth media ecology in the global North and South (Common Sense Media, 2015 ; Livingstone et al., 2014 ).

Today, however, one can no longer assume that television programming is viewed on a television set via regularly scheduled broadcasting. While watching television continues to make up a significant portion of teens’ overall media usage in the United States, Canada, Europe, and other regions (Common Sense Media, 2015 ; Caron et al., 2012 ; Livingstone et al., 2014 ), smart TVs, on-demand services, mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets, and video-streaming services such as YouTube, Netflix, and Baidu have redefined what it means to “watch television.” Because the options for consuming content now exist simultaneously across many platforms, there is also a significant amount of diversity in young people’s preferences and patterns of use. Music, for example, remains the most preferred medium among teens, but among only about one-third of teens (30%). After music, video games are a favorite among 15%, reading among 10%, social media among 10%, and television among 9%. The fragmenting of tastes and preferences is notable, with no single medium standing out above all. Added to this is the diversity of ways that teens can engage in these activities, as well as differences in relation to class, gender, and race/ethnicity (Common Sense Media, 2015 ). The point to be made is that changes in how young people spend time with the media are taking place as part of longer-term trends in how media is knit into adolescents’ lives.

At the center of this trend is the fact that young people simply have more media options—both in terms of the media technology used and the content available—and these options are tightly wedded to the daily lives of children and youth. For instance, 57% of teens in the United States have a television set in their bedroom, 47% have a laptop computer, 37% have a tablet, and 31% have a portable game player (Common Sense Media, 2015 ). Sonia Livingstone ( 2009 , p. 21) identifies these technologies with “screen-rich ‘bedroom cultures,’” which have become the norm for kids in countries across the global North. Adding to and fostering media use in screen-rich bedroom cultures is the fact that two-thirds of teens (67%) now own their own smartphone, on which they talk and text, access social media (40%), and listen to music in daily patterns and rhythms (Common Sense Media, 2015 ).

With all these media options available, it is not surprising that teens are more likely than in the past to be media multitaskers, able to pack more media into an hour of consumption than was possible in previous generations. Young people in the United States spend approximately nine hours a day consuming media, for example, but they consume more than one medium at a time. In fact, 50% of teens say that they watch television while doing homework, and 51% say that they use social media some of or all the time when they do homework (Common Sense Media, 2015 ). The typical teenage user today is someone doing homework while watching Netflix, listening to music, and responding to the occasional text, Snapchat, or Instagram message. In this way, screens do not go away as much as they have become environmental in youths’ lives.

This story casts a pall over contemporary youth cultures for some. It is as though the media machine is never absent from youths’ time and space. It is attached to and formative of the worlds of young people, and it would appear to allow for no distance or time away from screens and representations in everyday life. Concerns of this sort are not new. They echo panicked worries about the consequences of young people’s media attachments that have existed for decades. To make sense of these worries, it is helpful to begin with the history of youth and youth culture, terms which are not exclusive to, but find an early emergence in, the West.

Youth as a Distinct Life Stage

The concept of youth can feel as though it has been with us for centuries. But while the age of transition between childhood and adulthood exists across societies, the idea that this period is associated with a particular group of people—youth—and the cultures that they partake in is a recent phenomenon. Andy Bennett (Bennett & Kahn-Harris, 2004 ) tells us that historical instances of what we now call “youth culture” can be traced back to the 17th and 18th centuries to a group of London apprentices whose dress, drinking, and riotous conduct set them apart from others. Early youth cultures can also be linked to stylistically distinct groups of young workers in northern England in the late 19th century , and to what Timothy Gilfoyle ( 2004 , p. 870) calls the “street rats and gutter snipes” of New York City, who developed oppositional subcultures to challenge adult authority from the mid- 19th century onward. But it wasn’t until the turn of the last century that a modern notion of youth took hold. Schooling would be key to this development.

Publicly funded or supported schooling on a mass scale was regularized in the United Kingdom by the late 19th century and had been ongoing in the United States in the post–Civil War period (i.e., after 1860–1865 ). Public schools developed around the same time in French and English Canada, and slightly later ( 1880 ) in Australia. The practice of batching students into groups by age contributed to the emergence of a new subject position linked to the teen years. If schools started this process, worries about delinquency served to consolidate the notion of youth as a stage of development. Juvenile crime in particular, initially considered primarily an affliction of poor and working-class youth, became generalized by the 1890s as juvenile delinquency and applied to all youth (Gillis, 1974 ). The fear of rising crime rates led to legislative action and the expansion of welfare provisions in the United Kingdom and the United States. The resulting system of social services addressed adolescents as a particular age cohort with specific interests and needs (Osgerby, 2004 ).

By the early 20th century , in psychology and pedagogy studies, G. Stanley Hall’s seminal text, Adolescence: Its Psychology and Its Relations to Physiology, Anthropology, Sociology, Sex, Crime, and Education (Hall, 1904 ) addressed this stage of life as a specific period of development associated with tumult and uncertainty—the sturm and drang of adolescence. Thinking of adolescence in these terms reflected the worries of legislators, educators, and reformers, but it was not until the early 1940s that the notion of youth culture was coined by the American sociologist Talcott Parsons ( 1942 ). Parsons used the phrase youth culture to name a specific generational cohort experiencing distinct processes of socialization that set them apart from others. Fears about young people’s maladjustment to war during the 1940s continued to feed worries about youth delinquency (Gilbert, 1986 ). But more significantly, a series of changes in the social, economic, and cultural lives of adolescents that began prior to World War II and consolidated during the postwar years proved essential to marking out a modern notion of youth culture.

Media and consumer markets were integral to these changes. From the start of the 20th century , mass media were among the key developments shaping youth culture and learning. This was evident in the United Kingdom and the United States, where industrialization and mass consumer markets emerged earlier than in other nations. This reveals something about the characteristics of youth culture; in many ways, youth cultures (dance, music, fashion, sports, etc.) have always been mediated and shaped by the effects of mass production, wage labor relations, and urban experience. In this way, youth and modernity are tightly connected. Modernity is linked to experiences of change driven by urbanization and migration, the expansion of mass, factory-based production, and the proliferation of images and consumerism as normative conditions of everyday life. Since the late 19th and early 20th centuries , youth have been harbingers of these developments and have often been considered the archetypical subject of modernity.

Early Mass Media and Youth Audiences

The tendency to link youth with the changes characterized by modernity has produced a history of anxieties where the relationships among youth, media culture, and education are concerned. These anxieties first appeared in response to the violence, vulgarity, and sexual desire in early popular culture (e.g., penny novels and mass sporting events, like Major League Baseball), which many educators thought posed an imminent threat to culture. The emergence of the cinema at the turn of the 20th century epitomized these fears by forever changing the nature of the intergenerational transmission of knowledge. Movies can be understood with little tuition, meaning that they can fix the attention of all age groups on the screen, a development that proved particularly attractive to children. Early cinematographers were able to stage dramas on a scale unheard of in live theater, to command an audience much greater than literature could, and hence to shape the popular imagination as never before. But because movies work through the language of images, they were thought to create highly emotional—and intellectually deceitful—effects. Images were thought to leave audiences (particularly young people) in something like a trance, a state of passivity that left adolescents open to forms of manipulation that were morally suspect and politically dangerous.

These fears were common, and yet for some, the very fact that movies could reach larger and more diverse audiences—including women and the working class—meant that the medium held a promise for learning that couldn’t be ignored. Such responses not only reflected the sentiment of early film boosters, but they also were part of a more nuanced sense of how life—including the experience of learning—was changing in the 20th century . In a remarkable series of essays, Walter Benjamin ( 1969 , 1970 ) argued thus, suggesting that movies could widen audiences’ horizons through the unique technology of the shot, the power of editing, and sound design. These tools allowed people to see and experience distant lands, other times, and new and fantastical experiences in live-action and highly structured narrative formats. Charlie Chaplin’s The Gold Rush ( 1925 ), MGM’s The Great Ziegfeld ( 1936 ), and Victor Fleming’s The Wizard of Oz ( 1939 ) exemplified film’s early appeal because they seemed capable of helping people to dream and escape vicariously from everyday experiences to imagine a different (and perhaps better) world.

Not surprisingly, Benjamin’s was a minority view in the mid- 20th century . Far more common were fears that modern media would serve to undermine how young people learn proper culture—meaning good books and the right music and stories thought to foster a vibrant and meaningful cultural life. Benjamin’s colleagues in the Frankfurt School (so-called for the city where their work began), Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer, were especially influential in this regard. Drawing from their experiences with the role that media (i.e., radio and film) played in the rise of fascism in Germany, as well as their disappointment with the quality of early popular music and Hollywood movies, Adorno and Horkheimer ( 1972 ) argued that the culture industries (the artifacts and experiences produced by the corporations who sold or transmitted film, popular music, magazines, and radio) threatened to undermine rich and autonomous forms of cultural life. They meant that movies, advertisements, and eventually television were signs of the commodification of culture, an indication that culture itself—epitomized by the rich European traditions of classical music, painting, and literature—was being reduced to a sellable thing, a commodity just like any other in capitalist societies.

In this context, Adorno and Horkheimer suggested that culture no longer works to promote critical and autonomous thought; rather, the culture industries promote sameness, a uniformity of experience and a standardization of life that at best serve to distract people from significant issues of the day. Through childish illusion and fantasy, the culture industries produce false consciousness, a form of thinking that misinterprets the real issues that matter in our lives, leaving young people and adults blissfully unaware of key issues of common concern that demand our attention and action. For those suspicious of these observations, they are worth considering in light of Donald Trump’s election as president of the United States in 2016 . Since the election, it has become clear that distraction (by “fake news,” for instance) and illusion (facilitated at least in part by foreign manipulation of social media) played a vital role in the campaign and Trump’s eventual election.

Youth Markets and Media Panics

The concerns of the Frankfurt School found a receptive audience in the second half of the 20th century . The postwar decades mark an especially significant period of expansion in youth markets and youth culture in the West (Osgerby, 2004 ). Increasing birth rates during the postwar baby boom fueled the expansion of youth markets, as did the extension of mass schooling, which “accentuated youth as a generational cohort” (Osgerby, 2004 , p. 16). Complicating this were the emergence of television and an intensely organized effort to shape and calibrate the spending power of young people in the service of conspicuous consumer consumption.

First introduced to the general public at the 1939 New York World’s Fair, in the postwar years, television became a new kind of hearth around which parents and children would gather. In the United States, television was initially thought potentially promising for children’s education. The small screen represented the promise and possibility of modern times. Not surprisingly, this sentiment was short lived (Goldfarb, 2002 ). By the late 1950s and 1960s, it became apparent that “most children’s programming was produced with the size of the audience rather than children’s education in mind. [As a result,] television [became] the source of anxious discourses about mesmerized children entranced by mindless cartoons, punctuated by messages from paying sponsors” (Kline, Stewart, & Murphy, 2006 , p. 132; also see Kline, 1993 ). These worries aligned with increasing concerns about the dangerous and morally compromising influence of rock ‘n’ roll, popular magazines, early celebrities, and movies in youths’ lives, and what resulted was a media panic that harkened back to the earliest days of mass media.

Most often characterized by exaggerated claims about the impact of popular commercial culture on children and youth, media panics are a special kind of moral frenzy over the influence of media on vulnerable populations (Drotner, 1999 ). Stanley Cohen’s groundbreaking study of the mods and rockers, Folk Devils and Moral Panics , suggests that emerging youth cultures became the most recurrent type of moral panic in Britain after World War II (Cohen, 1972 ). He reveals how youth are positioned in postwar industrial societies as a source of fear and often misplaced anxiety. His study has been criticized for simplifying the meaning of the term moral panics and for underestimating how complex media environments can shape them (McRobbie & Thornton, 1995 ); nonetheless, his work draws attention to the ways that overwrought fears of youth and media culture can come to act as stand-ins for larger social anxieties. In the process, youth and youth culture become scapegoats. Media panics don’t offer helpful tools for explaining social change, in other words, as much as they distract parents, educators, and others from making sense of the formative conditions shaping young lives.

Media panics continued to appear throughout the 1980s, 1990s, and 2000s. In the United Kingdom, for instance, media panics arose around “video nasties” and the risks that horror films and sexually explicit material were thought to pose for youth (Oswell, 2002 ). Related concerns arose in the 1990s regarding video games and violence, the presence of dangerous and disturbing messages buried in the lyrics of popular music, and fears about fantasy board games, including Dungeons and Dragons . More recently, anxieties have come to the fore having to do with the role of the Internet and social media in young people’s lives, including fears of “stranger danger,” cyberbullying, and the likelihood that teenagers are sharing explicit images of themselves and others online (i.e., “sexting”).

We note these fears not to dismiss them outright, but to draw attention to the history of anxieties that have characterized worries about youth and media culture. Such concerns are often underpinned by the view that young people are vulnerable and highly impressionable persons unable to manage the impact of media in their lives. Indeed, the wariness of public officials, parents, health practitioners, and educators toward media is still today often underpinned by deeper commitments to a sense that youth is a time of innocence and hope. Whether understood biologically as a period of maturation toward adulthood or as a distinct generational cohort characterized by shared processes of socialization, adolescence has long been a repository for both the greatest hopes and fears of a nation. While youth are often considered a risk to society and the reproduction of social order, they also have long been framed in connection with the future health and well-being of nations. The result is that youth often occupy a contradictory space in relation to media culture (Drotner, 1999 ).

On the one hand, popular media culture has been a vital resource through which youth communities, subcultures, and generations have defined themselves, their desires, and their hopes and dreams for decades. This continues to be reflected in the dynamic ways that youth are using and creating digital media to shape their lives and address matters of common concern in societies around the world. We take up these developments in more detail later in this article.

On the other hand, it is evident that consumerism and commercial media culture remain sources of tremendous anxiety. The media content that teenagers access—beyond the watchful eye of guardians and educators—and the way that they learn about gender, race, sexuality, the environment, and other issues continues to raise alarms. From at least the 1980s onward, the quantity of media culture has expanded around the world, meaning that more advertising, more commercial screens, more branded experiences of play, and more intensive systems of corporate surveillance and tracking have become common features of youths’ lives.

The digitization of media and the emergence of more dynamic, participatory media cultures (Jenkins, 2006 ) are crucial to this development, as we explain in the final section. But changes in media concentration and the development of vast media conglomerates—including Google, Disney, Time Warner, Viacom, Baidu, and News Corp—that produce media commodities and experiences for various national markets have been instrumental in shaping the tensions and impact of media culture on youth lives. It is just these sorts of developments that have long raised the concerns of educators and others who remain deeply ambivalent about the relationship between consumer media and young people. The consequence of this ambivalence has led some educators to argue that media, including film, television, and the Internet, can have a broader educational impact, particularly given their ability to reach large audiences. In the following sections, we take up this possibility and address how learning media and media education have been developed to create forms of public pedagogy with the potential to enrich young people’s learning.

The Media as Learning Portal

While the ties between consumer culture and media continue to raise worries, television’s reach and increasingly central role in families have drawn the attention of educators who argue that it can be repurposed to have a broader educational impact. This sentiment crept into educational discourses throughout the 1960s in a way that would shift the thinking about youth, media culture, and education. Educational media programming was not a new idea in the decade so much as it extended and contributed to an older tradition of using stories and folk tales to teach moral lessons to children (Singhal & Rogers, 1999 ). What was different in the 1960s (and today), however, is that this work wasn’t (and isn’t) being undertaken around the local hearth; it was (and is) developing through the conventions, institutions, and practices of a highly complex media system.

Using this media system to create successful learning resources has been a delicate business. The idea of using radio and documentary movies as informational (and often didactic) educational tools to teach kids social studies, geography, and history has a long tradition in national schooling systems. More dynamic forms of educational programming came online in the late 1960s, led by a then-remarkable new program called Sesame Street that came to epitomize these developments.

Created by the Children’s Television Workshop (CTW) in 1969 as part of the so-called American war on poverty (Spring, 2009 ), Sesame Street helped launch the Public Broadcasting System (PBS) in the United States as a counterweight to the influence of commercial programming in the American mediasphere. Originated by Joan Ganz Cooney and Lloyd Morrisett, Sesame Street drew lessons from early children’s television programming in countries like Canada and the United Kingdom (Coulter, 2016 ) and set out to promote peaceful multicultural societies and to provide inner-city kids with a head start in developing literacy and numeracy skills. To do this, the now well-known strategy was to adapt conventions of commercial media—muppets, music, animation, live-action film, special effects, and visits from celebrities—to deliver mass literacy to home audiences.

By the late 1990s, approximately 40% of all American children aged 2–5 watched Sesame Street weekly. From the 2000s onward, the reach of Sesame Street became global, extending to 120 countries and including many foreign-language adaptations developed with local educators in Bangladesh, China, Egypt, Germany, Israel, Palestine, Russia, South Africa, and many other places (Spring, 2009 ). With global audiences, the show’s storylines and issues addressed have also changed. Sesame Street is now engaged in raising awareness and understanding about a host of global issues. For instance, in the South African coproduction, a muppet named Kami who is HIV-positive was introduced in response to the large numbers of South African children who are HIV-positive. Through Kami and related stories, the goal of the program is “to create tolerance of HIV-positive children and disseminate information about the disease” across South Africa” (Spring, 2009 , p. 80). Meanwhile in Bangladesh, the local version of Sesame Street has been used to promote “equality between social classes, genders, castes, and religions” (Spring, 2009 , p. 80).

This success led to the development of other CTW educational programs, including The Electric Company , 3-2-1 Contact , and Square One TV . A conviction that electronic and digital media can support progressive educational goals has also fueled the development of a learning media industry over the past two decades. We are in fact witnessing a veritable explosion of educational media, including an array of educational learning software ( Math Blaster , JumpStart , Where in the World Is Carmen Sandiego , etc.) designed to improve older students’ competencies (Ito, 2008 ). Some of this media may be useful, but evidence about the learning value of many of these programs remains scant (Barbaro, 2008 ). On the other hand, at least three other forms of educational media have continued to develop, and in ways that can be beneficial to youth learning. They include public service announcements (PSAs), entertainment education, and cultural jamming.

Public Service Announcements

Public service announcements (PSAs) are now ubiquitous. They can be seen in schools, on television, online, and at commercial film screenings. They address issues ranging from the dangers of smoking, alcohol, and drugs, to concerns about youth driving habits, bullying in schools, what children are eating, and a host of other media-related social causes and health crises. At root, the strategy with PSAs isn’t altogether different from that of learning-oriented programs like Sesame Street . While the broad research and learning agenda that informs Sesame Street isn’t often replicated with PSAs, the idea that commercial media language can be repurposed to influence behavior is common to both formats.

PSAs use the language of advertising—quick, emotional, and sometimes funny messages that emphasize hard-hitting lessons—and the practices of branding to alter behavior or encourage youth to get involved with issues shaping their lives. Studies suggest these strategies can be remarkably effective for influencing young people’s behavior (Montgomery, 2007 , 2008 ; Wakefield, Flay, Nichter, & Giovino, 2003 ; Singhal & Rogers, 1999 ; DeJong & Winston, 1990 ). Wakefield et al. ( 2003 ) for instance, review a number of studies that show antismoking PSAs are useful tools for changing kids’ attitudes, especially when combined with school support programs that help youth to quit or avoid smoking.

These successes are important, of course, because they attest to the ways that learning through media can be nurtured in creative, dynamic, and effective ways, even in a time when media saturation is common in youth lives. A cautionary note is nonetheless in order. PSAs have become so common today that companies are using PSA-like formats to promote everything from cars to personal care products. The personal health products company, Unilever Inc., for instance, has been especially successful with their Dove “Campaign for Real Beauty.” Cutting across online platforms as well as television and film, the campaign has foregrounded the way that beauty ads create unrealistic notions about women’s body images. This is an important message, to be sure; however, while this campaign was underway, Unilever launched an equally provocative campaign for AXE body products for men. What stood out in the latter campaign was precisely the opposite message about women’s body images; AXE ads in fact seemed to suggest that women matter only when their appearance corresponds to a rather tired and old set of stereotypes. This doesn’t necessarily undermine the value of the Dove Campaign for Real Beauty, but it does suggest that the value of PSAs (particularly when developed as singular learning resources) may be waning as this style of communication becomes just one more strategy for channeling commercial messages to youth.

Entertainment Education

Another strategy, often called entertainment education , has a similarly long history in both the global North and South (Singhal & Rogers, 1999 ; Tufte, 2004 ). Distinct from the more explicit focus of learning TV and PSA campaigns, this strategy takes advantage of the fact that it has been clear for some time that youth negotiate their identities and values through popular media representations and celebrity identifications. Because of this, educators and youth activists have turned to network programming (e.g., Dawson’s Creek , MTV’s Real People , and Glee ), as well as teen magazines (e.g., Teen People and Seventeen ) as vehicles for developing storylines and articles that address issues in youth’s lives. Similar practices are evident around the world. In India, Mexico, Brazil, and South Africa, for instance, popular television formats like soap operas and youth dramas (e.g., Soul City and Soul Brothers in South Africa) have been used to raise awareness and change unhealthy behaviors related to a host of issues, including child poverty, community health, HIV-AIDS, and gun violence.

In a related vein, the Kaiser Foundation in the United States has been influential in the development of a multinational set of entertainment education programs on HIV-AIDS in partnership with the United Nations. Since 2004 , the Kaiser Foundation has partnered with the United Nations, the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), the South African Broadcasting Corporation, Russia’s Gazprom-Media, Rupert Murdoch’s Star Group Ltd. in India, and more than 10 other media companies to develop a Global AIDS initiative. This eventually led to the integration of HIV-AIDS messages into various programs watched by young people, including a reality series in India modeled on American Idol , called Indian Idol (Montgomery, 2007 ). Similarly, series like the Degrassi franchise in Canada and the United States have addressed issues such as family violence, school shootings, mental illness, and questions about sexuality (Byers, 2008 ). Other series, including Buffy the Vampire Slayer , have ventured into similar territory, and while many educators are perhaps wary of the close working partnership between commercial broadcasters and producers in entertainment education, others note that the very success of this kind of programming demonstrates that media culture can be more than entertainment; it can be a form of meaningful pedagogy that helps young people engage in real social, cultural, and political debate.

Culture Jamming

Fomenting social, cultural, and political debate has been the objective of a third strategy used by educators and progressives concerned about youth, media culture, and education. Culture jamming draws on a long tradition of using media techniques with satire and parody “to draw attention to what may otherwise go unnoticed” in society (Meikle, 2007 , p. 168). Antecedents to culture jamming include the anti-Nazi dada posters of John Heartfield (born Helmut Herzfeld) and the détournment tactics of the Situationist Movement of the mid-1950s and 1960s, which sought to dismantle the world of commercial media culture that transforms “[e]verything that [is] directly lived . . . into a representation” (Debord, 1994 , p. 1).

Culture jammers frequently argue that our lives are dominated by a vast electronic and digital field of multimodal texts (images, audio, and now hypertext and hyperlinks), and the only way to respond is to use the design methods (pastiche, bricolage, parody, and montage) and genres (advertising, journalism, and filmmaking) that characterize commercial media to challenge media power and taken-for-granted assumptions within contemporary culture (Kenway & Bullen, 2008 ). Mark Dery ( 1993 , p. 1) calls this a form of “semiological guerrilla warfare,” through which culture jammers fight the status quo by using the principles of media culture to upend the meanings and assumptions operating in this culture.

Perhaps the most common and popular form of culture jamming is the sub-vertisement that groups like Adbusters have made popular. Sub-vertisements use popular references and techniques in branding campaigns to turn the meaning of logos, branded characters, and signs (like the Absolut Vodka bottle) on their heads. (See http://adbusters.org/spoofads/index.php for a gallery of examples that target fast food culture, alcohol and fashion ads, and political communication.) Other groups, including the Yes Men , have developed another culture-jamming strategy based around highly elaborate spoofs of websites, media interviews, and public corporate communications. Reverend Billy and his Church of Stop Shopping is yet another example of culture jamming. Reverend Billy and his allies use impromptu, guerrilla theater tactics to raise awareness of the deleterious effects of consumerism (i.e., sweat shop labor, debt, climate degradation, etc.) in society. The idea behind this and similar work is to use fun yet subversive tactics to offer radical commentary about common images, brands, and ideas that circulate in our lives. These learning practices are open to all, of course, but they have been especially relevant among educators eager to address critical issues about youth media culture.

Media Education and Direct Interventions in Youth Learning

Learning media aims to educate people through various media forms, and while this continues to be a popular strategy, for more than 80 years educators and activists have also turned to more direct interventions to affect how young people learn and engage with media culture. Media literacy education addresses how media operates in and through particular institutions, technologies, texts, and audiences. In its early development, media education tended to position schools and teachers as the defenders of traditional culture and impressionable youths. Early relationships among youths, media cultures, and education were framed around a reactionary stance that implored educators to protect youth from the media. F. R. Leavis and Denys Thompson ( 1933 ) were the first to champion this protectionist phase of media education in their book Culture and Environment , which is credited as the first set of proposals for systematic teaching about mass media in schools. Leavis and Thompson’s work includes a strong prejudice against American popular culture and mass media in general and reflects the aspirations for early media education within schools to inoculate young people against media messages to protect literary (i.e., high) culture from the commoditization lamented by mass culture theorists (Hoechsmann & Poyntz, 2012 ).

These sentiments remained strong into the early 1960s, but much as learning media took a new and compelling turn in this decade, so too did media education. Fueling this trend was the belief that educators could adapt curricula and teaching practices to the increasing role of commercial television and movies in young people’s lives. In the United Kingdom, this sentiment led educators to develop a screen education movement based around the critical use of movies in classrooms. Drawing from the influential work of Richard Hoggart’s Uses of Literacy ( 1957 ) and Raymond Williams’s Culture and Society ( 1958 ), the purpose of screen education was to study the popular media that teenagers were watching so that they would be in a better position to understand their own situation in the world, including the causes of their alienation and marginalization.

A similar desire to help youth see connections between school and everyday life motivated early initiatives in media education in Australia and Canada. Pedagogically, this led to the development of film analysis and film production courses, which drew inspiration from cultural shifts in the way that movies were understood. No longer seen simply as forms of entertainment, film education focused on the way that popular Hollywood movies (e.g., Easy Rider and Medium Cool in 1969 ) reflected social and cultural values and were thus thought deserving of critical attention. This meant teaching students to understand the language of cinema and the ways that movies engage and shape prospects for social and political change.

As an outgrowth of this work, the 1980s and 1990s witnessed the first sustained period of institutionalization of media education. Key curricular documents were produced, and media education entered the school curricula in many countries in a formal way for the first time. The Canadian province of Ontario led the way, mandating the teaching of media literacy in the high school English curriculum in 1987 . Eventually K–12 students across Canada would receive some form of media education by the end of the 1990s. Meanwhile in the United Kingdom, the late 1980s witnessed the integration of media education into the curriculum as an examinable subject for students pursuing university entrance. This helped to fuel the popularity of courses in media studies, film studies, and communication studies in schools, and by the 1990s and 2000s, additional intermediate courses in media studies were added to the curriculum.

In Australia, the late 1980s and 1990s marked a period of expansion in school-based production and media education training, in part because such training was seen to be an ideal way to equip young people with the technical skills and competencies needed to compete in a globally competitive, highly mediated world (Edith, 2003 ; McMahon & Edith, 1999 ). Similarly, in various non-English-speaking countries, including Norway, Sweden, and Finland, media literacy developed and expanded throughout the 1990s (Tufte, 1999 ).

Even when not included in the formal curriculum, media education became a pedagogical practice of teachers aware of the impact of the media in the lives of their students. In particular, in those countries in the global South where the broader educational needs of the society were still focused on getting children to school and teaching basic literacy and numeracy, media education may not have emerged in the mandated curriculum, but teachers were drawing on media education strategies to help youth make sense of and affect their worlds.

In the United States, school-based media education initiatives were slower to get off the ground. In 1978 , in response to children’s increasing television consumption, the Parents-Teachers Association (PTA) convinced the U.S. Office of Education to launch a research and development initiative on the effects of commercial television on young people. In short order, this initiative led the Office of Education to recommend a national curriculum to enhance students’ understanding of commercials, their ability to distinguish fact from fiction, the recognition of competing points of view in programs, an understanding of the style and formats in public affairs programming, and the ability to understand the relationship between television and printed materials (Kline et al., 2006 ).

Ultimately, attempts to implement this curriculum were hampered in the early 1980s as President Ronald Reagan’s move to deregulate the communications industry challenged efforts to develop media education in U.S. schools. Nonetheless, these early developments proved crucial in establishing the ground from which more recent media education initiatives have grown. Robert Kubey ( 2003 ) noted that as of 2000 , all 50 states included some education about the media in core curricular areas such as English, social studies, history, civics, health, and consumer education.

Beyond schools, a number of key nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) have developed over the past two decades and have promoted dynamic forms of media education. The Alliance for a Media Literate America (AMLA), a national membership organization chartered in 2001 to organize and host the National Media Education Conference every two years and to promote professional development, is of particular note. So too are the Media Education Foundation (MEF), which produces some of the most important media education resources in North America, and the Centre for Media Literacy (CML), which offers a helpful MediaLit Kit to promote teaching and learning in a media age.

Literacy and Production

While often led by educators, parents, and young people, these developments in media education have been enhanced by interest in a broad project of literacy. The role and discussion of literacy discourse in media education go back to at least the early 1970s in the United States (Kline et al., 2006 ). As media education has internationalized, however, there has been a tendency to turn to literacy metaphors to conceptualize the kinds of media learning enabled through media education. As media education has increasingly become part of school curricula, the language of literacies also has been a familiar and useful framework to situate classroom (and out-of-school) practices. The New London Group’s ( 1996 ) “pedagaogy of multiple literacies” has been especially influential, offering a framework to address the diverse modalities of literacy (thus, multiple literacies) in complex media cultures, alongside a focus on the design and development of critical media education curricula.

While the New London Group’s work has helped to support the development of media literacy education in an era of multimodal texts, the arrival of the personal computer and the emergence of the Internet have been accompanied by the proliferation of a whole host of digital media technologies (e.g., cameras, visual and audio editing systems, distribution platforms, etc.), encouraging the integration of youth media production into the work of media education. Media production has an impressive history in the field of media literacy education going back to at least the 1960s, when experiments with 16-mm film production in community groups and schools were part of early film education initiatives in the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, and other countries. By the 1990s and 2000s, media production became a common feature in media education practices because it was thought to enable young people to learn by doing , rather than just by analyzing or reading media texts. Newly accessible broadcasting (or narrowcasting) opportunities made available through Web 2.0 platforms (e.g., YouTube, Facebook, wiki spaces, etc.) accelerated these developments, encouraging the growth of information training programs in schools that focus on Web design, software training, and mastering camera skills in ways that emphasize technological mastery as an end in itself.

The turn to information training is perhaps not surprising, but while technical skills training can help young people to learn key competencies that may lead to job prospects, technical training on its own misrepresents the critical and civic concerns that have long animated media literacy education. How the civic and political involvement of youth are emerging inside highly engaging digital media cultures is one of three major issues examined in the next and final section of this article, where we address pressing questions about contemporary relationships among youth, media culture, and learning.

Contemporary Issues in Youth Media Culture and Education

Recent questions about youth and media culture are tangled up with the participatory condition common to network societies (Sterne, Coleman, Ross, Barney, & Tembeck, 2016 ; Castells, 1996 ). The age of mass media was preoccupied with problems of representation, atomization, homogenization, and manipulation, and these problems defined the thinking about youth consumption and commercial culture in much of the 20th century . This is reflected in the anxieties and studies noted earlier in this article. As we have come to read and write media differently in a digital era, however, a new set of problems has arisen (Chun, 2016 ). Among these is the new role of participation and a participatory turn in media culture that has enabled users (or those we used to call audiences ) to become more active and involved with brands, franchises, celebrities, technologies, and social media networks across everyday life (Jenkins, 2006 ). This turn is evidenced by the increasing amount of time that youth spend with screens, but it is also a function of the way that many of us now interact with media culture. Audiences have always been actively involved with still and moving images, celebrities, sports, and popular music, among other artifacts. Fan cultures exemplify this, as do studies of how real-life audiences talk about and use media (Buckingham, 1993 ; Williams, 2003 ; Silverstone, 2001 ; Scannell, 1989 ; Radway, 1984 ).

But today we are called on to participate in digital media culture in new ways. Participation has become a condition that is “both environmental (a state of affairs) and normative (a binding principle of right action)” (p. vii), and our digital technologies and highly concentrated media industries are woven into the fabric of this state of affairs (Sterne et al., 2016 , p. vii). “These media allow a growing number of people to access, modify, store, circulate, and share media content” in ways that have been available only to professionals or a select few in the past (Sterne et al., 2016 , p. viii). As digitalization has changed the nature of media production, we have not only become more involved and active in our media use, but our interaction with digital media has allowed others to interact with us in new and sometimes troubling ways. This is the paradox of the participatory condition, and it shapes how youth media culture and education are connected today.

Issue 1: Surveillance, Branding, and the Production of Youth

To begin with, the pointy end of the participatory paradox has to do with the way that digital media cultures allow others, including corporations, governments, and predatory individuals, to monitor, survey, coordinate, and guide our activities as never before. With our data footprint, states, political parties, media, toy, and technology companies (as well as health, insurance, and a host of other industries) become data aggregation units that map and monitor youth behavior to interact with, brand, and modify this behavior for profitable ends. Big data enables the production of complex algorithms that produce what Wendy Chun ( 2016 , p. 363) calls “a universe of dramas” that dominate our attention economies. These dramas (the stories, celebrities, associations, and products with which we interact) are “co-produced transnationally by corporations and states through intertwining databases of action and unique identifiers.” Databases and identifiers enable algorithms to target, engage, and integrate a diverse range of youth into the global imaginary of consumer celebrity cultures and the archives of surveillance states (Chun, 2016 ). The American former military contractor and dissident Edward Snowden draws our attention to this universe in the documentary CitizenFour , which tells his story, and makes clear that instead of governments and corporations being accountable to us, we are now, regularly and without knowing it, accountable to them (Snowden, 2016 ).

Compounding these concerns, strangers can now access youth in ways that magnify the potential damage done by the pointy end of the participatory paradox. Fears about stranger danger and cyberbullying have been especially acute in recent years, and while these fears are not new (Poyntz, 2013a ), they have been central to panicked reactions among parents, educators, and others wary of youth media culture. These fears are often connected to worries about online content that young people now access, including vast troves of pornography available at the click of a button, as well as worrying online sites that promote hate, terrorism, and the radicalization of youth. The actual merits of concerns about who is accessing youth and what content they are accessing are sometimes difficult to gauge; nonetheless, it remains the case that for the foreseeable future, one of the fundamental issues shaping relationships between youth, media culture, and education is how and through what means youth are produced and made ready to participate in contemporary promotional and surveillance cultures—particularly when this happens for the benefit of people and institutions that exercise immense and often dubious power in young lives.

Issue 2—Creative Media and Youth Producing Politics

On the other end of the participatory paradox is a second issue shaping youth, media culture, and learning. While network societies produce new risk conditions (like those noted previously) for teenagers, digital media undoubtedly have enabled new forms of creative participation and media production that are changing how youth agency and activism operate. Mobile phones, cameras, editing platforms, and distribution networks have become more easily accessible for young people across the global North and South in recent years, and as this has happened, youth have gained opportunities to create, circulate, collaborate, and connect with others to address civic issues and matters of broad personal and public concern in ways that simply have not been available in the past. Since the mid-1990s, online media worlds have emerged as counterenvironments that afford teenagers a rich and inviting sphere of digitally mediated experiences to explore their imaginations, hopes, and desires (Giroux, 2011 ).

The fact that young people’s online worlds are dominated by the plots and affective commodities of commercial corporations means that these worlds can foster a culture of choice and personalized goods that encourage youth to act in highly individualized ways (Livingstone, 2009 ). But the skills and networks that teens nurture online can be publicly relevant (Boyd, 2014 ; Ito et al., 2015 ). The Internet, social media, and other digital resources have in fact become central to new kinds of participatory politics and shared civic spaces that are emerging as an outgrowth and extension of young people’s cultural experiences and activities (Ito et al., 2015 ; Soep, 2014 ; Kahne, Middaugh, & Allen, 2014 ; Poyntz, 2017 ; Bennett & Segerberg, 2012 ; Bakardjieva, 2010 ).

These practices extend a history of youth actions wherein culture and cultural texts have been drawn on to contest politics and power (including issues of gender, class, race, sexuality, and ability) and matters of public concern (including climate change and the rights of indigenous communities). Youth who lack representation and recognition in formal political institutions and practices often turn to culture and cultural texts to contest politics and power (Williams, 1958 ; Dimitriadis, 2009 ; Maira & Soep, 2005 ; McRobbie, 1993 ; Hebdige, 1979 ; Hall & Jefferson, 1976 ). Recently, these tendencies have been evident in the actions of the Black Lives Matter movement , which has produced an array of cultural expressions, including a video story archive and a remarkable photo library that lays bare the experiences and hopes of a movement that aims to be “an ideological and political intervention in a world where Black lives are systematically and intentionally targeted for demise.”

Beyond North America, in Tunisia, Egypt, Israel, Chile, Spain, the United Kingdom, Turkey, and other places, a range of bottom-up communication for social change practices has been part of epochal political actions and assemblies often led by students and other young people demanding government action on social justice and economic and human rights (Dencik & Leistert, 2015 ; Tufte et al., 2013 ). The contexts for these actions are complex, but in general, they point to instances where political cultures are emerging from young people’s cultural experiences and learning, challenging the meaning, representation, and response of those in power to matters of public concern.

More generally, across a range of youth communities, peer networks, and affinity associations, participatory media cultures are enabling levels of engagement, circulation, and cultural production by young people that are altering relationships between youth creative acts and political life. Kahne et al., 2014 have described these emerging practices as part of a wave of participatory politics that include a cross-section of actions that often extend across global communities. Examples include consumer activism (e.g., product boycotting) and lifestyle politics (e.g., vegetarianism); groups like the Harry Potter Alliance (HPA), which use characters and social justice themes from the novels to encourage connections between cultural and civic life; a community gathered around the Nerdfighters , a YouTube channel and movement organized around John and Hank Green and their mission to “decrease world suck”; fascinating examples of participatory storytelling, including the use of video memes by and about undocumented immigrant youth to draw attention to lives that have largely disappeared from mainstream media culture; and youth-driven campaigns and petitions organized in conjunction with groups like Change.org and Openmedia.ca to challenge public policy and focus attention on major injustices by institutions and officials using memes, videos, and mobile phone recordings of violence, inequity, and exploitation (Ito et al., 2015 ).

In addition to politically mobilized youth and youth drawn into mediated politics through cultural pastimes, there is evidence that youth connections to politics are being nurtured further by a diverse range of community youth media initiatives and groups that have emerged in cities across the global North and South over the past 20 years (Poyntz, 2013b , 2017 ; Asthana, 2015 ; Tufte et al., 2013 ; Tyner, 2009 ). Such community groups are part of a response to the risk conditions that shape contemporary life. They are crucial to negotiating citizenship in highly mediated cultures and for addressing digital divides to equip young people with the resources and networks necessary to manage and respond to experiences of change, injustice, violence, and possibility.

Community youth media production groups are part of an informal cultural learning sector that is an increasingly significant part of the work of provision for socially excluded youth. These groups are of many types, but they are symptomatic of a participatory media culture in which new possibilities and new opportunities have arisen to nurture youth creativity and political action. How to foster these developments through media education and the challenges confronting these efforts represents the third major issue shaping connections between youth, media culture, and learning today.

Issue 3—Youth, Media Learning, and Media Education

Media literacy education refers to learning “a set of competencies that enable one to interpret media texts and institutions, to make media of [one’s] own, and to recognize and engage with the social and political influence of media in everyday life” (Hoechsmann & Poyntz, 2012 , p. 1). We might debate this definition, but the larger point is that since at least the mid-1990s, media literacy education has made many gains in school curricula and among community groups and social movements, as noted previously (Skinner, Hackett, & Poyntz, 2015 ). At the same time, the challenges facing media literacy education are significant. For instance, the massive and relentless turn to instrumental forms of technical and creative learning in the service of job markets and competitive global positioning in formal schooling has mitigated the impact of critical media education.

Over the past two decades, a broad set of changes in schooling environments around the world have increasingly put a premium on preparing teenagers to be globally competitive, employable subjects (McDougal, 2014 ). In this context, the lure of media training in the service of work initiatives and labor market preparation is strong; thus, there has been a tendency in school and community-based media projects and organizations to focus on questions of culture and industry know-how (i.e., knowing and making media for the culture industries), as opposed to the work of public engagement and media reform. This orientation has been further encouraged by a return to basics and standardized testing across educational policy and practice, which has encouraged a move away from citizen-learning curricula (Westheimer, 2011 ; Westheimer & Kahne, 2004 ). These developments have led to efforts to redefine media education in the English curriculum in the United Kingdom, in ways that discourage critical media analysis and production (Buckingham, 2014 ).

In like fashion, the pressure to return to more traditional forms of learning has led to education policies in the United States, Australia, and parts of Canada that are intended to dissuade critical and/or citizen-oriented learning practices in schools (Poyntz, 2015 ; Hoechsmann & DeWaard, 2015 ). Poyntz ( 2013 ) has indicated elsewhere how this orientation shapes the projects of some community media groups working with young people, but the upshot is that instrumental media learning has come to complicate and sometimes frustrate how media literacy education is used to intervene in relationships among youth, media culture, and learning (Livingstone, 2009 ; Sefton-Screen, 2006 ).

This situation has been complicated further as the field of media literacy education has evolved to become a global discourse composed of a range of sometimes contradictory practices, modalities, objectives, and traditions (McDougall, 2014 ). The globalization of media literacy education has been a welcome development and is no doubt a consequence of the globalization of communication systems and the intensification of consumerism among young people around the world. But if the result of this development has been an outpouring of policy discussions, policy papers, and pilot studies across Europe, North America, Asia, and other regions (Frau-Meigs & Torrent, 2009 ), this has at the same time also produced a complex field of media literacy practices and models that have led to a generalization (and even one suspects a depoliticization) of the field. This has happened as efforts have emerged to weave media literacy education into disparate education systems and media institutions (Poyntz, 2015 ).

As the proliferation of media literacies has been underway, a raft of new media forms and practices—including cross-media, transmedia, and spreadable media (Jenkins, Ford, & Green, 2013 ) have also encouraged the production of a myriad of discourses about “ digital literacy, new media literacy [and] transmedia literacy” (McDougall, 2014 , p. 6). These and similar developments have ensured that media literacy education remains a contested field of objectives and meanings. While this can be interesting for academics, it may be less than encouraging for young people, educators, and others eager to draw on media education to affect contemporary relationships between youth, media culture, and learning. And let it be noted that the impact of these developments is not only relevant to the ways that youth negotiate media culture, but also to the future of democracy itself.

Concluding Thoughts

Media cultures have come to play a significant role in the way that young people go about making meaning in the world; this is especially true of how knowledge is shared and acquired. As a result, media are part of the continual shaping and reshaping of what learning resources look like. Both inside and outside the classroom, young people are increasingly able, even expected, to utilize the vast number of resources now available to them. Yet, many of these resources now foster worry rather than learning. The fact that “Google it,” for instance is now a common phrase referring to the act of information seeking is in itself telling; a distinct culture of learning has emerged from the development of the Internet and other media technologies. In fact, many young people today have never experienced learning without the ability to “Google it.” Yet this very culture of learning is indistinguishable from an American multinational technology company that is not beholden to the idea of a “public good.” If the project of education is not just to be for the benefit of a select few, but for society and a healthy democracy as a whole, however, then these contradictions must be engaged. So while media cultures are a significant feature of young people’s lives, it is becoming clear that media cultures have augured complicated relationships between youth and education in ways that are not easily reconciled.

The project of media education is not without its own set of challenges and contradictions, including those highlighted in this article. But it remains indispensable if educators, parents, and researchers are to support young people in navigating learning environments and imagining democratic futures.

Acknowledgments

Parts of this article have been adapted from Hoechsmann et al. ( 2012 ).

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Essay on Role of Youth in Modern India

Students are often asked to write an essay on Role of Youth in Modern India in their schools and colleges. And if you’re also looking for the same, we have created 100-word, 250-word, and 500-word essays on the topic.

Let’s take a look…

100 Words Essay on Role of Youth in Modern India

The power of youth.

Youth are the backbone of any nation. In modern India, they play a crucial role in shaping the country’s future. They are the torchbearers of change and progress, brimming with innovative ideas.

Education and Development

The youth of India are actively participating in education. They are harnessing the power of technology to learn and grow, contributing to India’s development.

Political Participation

Youth are also becoming more politically active, voicing their opinions, and influencing policy-making. They are the driving force behind a more democratic India.

To conclude, the youth are the future of India. Their role in shaping a modern, progressive India cannot be overstated.

250 Words Essay on Role of Youth in Modern India

Introduction.

The youth of India are the architects of tomorrow. They possess a dynamic spirit of innovation and disruption, which is crucial in a rapidly evolving world. As digital natives, they are at the forefront of technological advancements, driving India’s transition into a digital economy.

In the political sphere, the youth are not just spectators but active participants. They are increasingly involved in policy-making, leveraging social media platforms to voice their opinions and influence change. Their involvement is vital for a vibrant democracy.

Social Reformation

The youth are also pivotal in social reform. They challenge traditional norms and advocate for issues like gender equality, environmental sustainability, and human rights. Their progressive thinking fosters a culture of acceptance and inclusivity.

Challenges and the Way Forward

Despite their potential, the youth face several challenges such as unemployment and inadequate access to quality education. Addressing these issues requires concerted efforts from all stakeholders. Initiatives like skill development programs and educational reforms can equip the youth with the necessary tools to contribute effectively to the nation’s progress.

In conclusion, the youth are the torchbearers of change in modern India. Their energy, creativity, and resilience are invaluable assets in shaping a prosperous and inclusive future for the country.

500 Words Essay on Role of Youth in Modern India

The pivotal role of youth in modern india, driving economic growth.

India’s youth population is a potent economic force. The demographic dividend, a term coined to represent the economic potential of a young working-age population, is a key factor in India’s projected economic growth. The youth, with their innovative ideas, entrepreneurial spirit, and tech-savviness, are the driving force behind start-ups and technological advancements, propelling India towards becoming a digital and knowledge-based economy.

Promoting Social Change

The youth of India are not just economic contributors but social changemakers as well. They are at the forefront of social movements, advocating for equality, justice, and environmental sustainability. From participating in protests against social injustices to leading climate change initiatives, the youth are using their voices and digital platforms to effect meaningful social change.

Shaping the Political Landscape

Nurturing cultural evolution.

Cultural evolution is another arena where the youth play a key role. They are the custodians of India’s rich cultural heritage and are instrumental in its preservation. At the same time, they are also agents of cultural evolution, blending tradition with modernity and creating a unique cultural identity that reflects the diverse and dynamic spirit of modern India.

Challenges and Opportunities

Despite their potential, the youth of India face numerous challenges, including unemployment, inadequate educational opportunities, and mental health issues. Addressing these challenges is crucial for harnessing the full potential of India’s youth. This requires comprehensive policies and initiatives that focus on education, skill development, job creation, and mental health support.

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