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Robert Bly wrote “A World of Half-Adults” to convey the idea that modern society has been corrupted through a lack of adults. The “half-adults” that he speaks of are people of adult age who have yet to fully transition into adulthood. Part of the problem that is found in his essay is that young people are no longer required to “grow up”. “An adult is a person not governed by what we have called pre-oedipal wishes, the demands for immediate pleasure, comfort, and excitement,” (64). The expectations on youth today is much different than it was in previous generations. The big cultural changes can be accredited to several factors in todays world, including, modern technology and the “sibling society” that people have begun to live in. Modern
Jacob Riis’ book How the Other Half Lives is a detailed description on the poor and the destitute in the inner realms of New York City. Riis tries to portray the living conditions through the ‘eyes’ of his camera. He sneaks up on the people flashes a picture and then tells the rest of the city how the ‘other half’ is living. As shocking as the truth was without seeing such poverty and horrible conditions with their own eyes or taking in the experience with all their senses it still seemed like a million miles away or even just a fairy tale.
In today’s culture, the number of issues that the average person has to face on a daily basis, are astronomical. Millennials, in particular, have been greatly affected by this, so much so that a new phase in the human lifespan has been created just for them! Dubbed “emerging adulthood” by psychologist Jeffrey Arnett, plopped smack dab in the middle of adolescence, and adulthood, this phase captures any, and all doubts that 20-29 year olds are plagued with. From their economic standing, to racial, ethnic, and identity issues, and to disabilities ranging from both mental, and physical, this phase captures every single uncertainty, fear, and qualm that one person can possibly have in a neat little package.
The way the mind works is through a set of processes, which are steps that must be taken in order for the function it is producing to be accomplished successfully. These processes are related to those that society must be willing to take in order to achieve a desired goal, otherwise known as the ‘struggle’. Younger generations, called Generation Me, develop narcissist views that did not allow for the ‘struggle’ to be considered in their generation. The basis for this mindset is introduced by author Jean Twenge in her essay, “An Army of One: Me”, as she described the gap that occurred between Baby Boomer parents and their GenMe children. This communication was severed because GenMe was taught that their ideas are the best, and therefore not debatable. This translates to differences in opinion and results in individualism. When those individuals do not work together, as demonstrated by Deborah Tannen, author of “The Roots of Debate in Education and The Hope of Dialogue”, they tend to have a weak sense of debate because they stick up for themselves. As a diagnosis to this problem of disconnectedness, Nicholas Carr, author of “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” decides that our society has begun to skip steps in the process of learning and in particular, the ‘struggle’ that produces the desired outcome. The disconnectedness that has developed in society has caused the loss of real learning, and the problem based on the generation gap introduced by Twenge altered the struggle that is necessary to accomplish, which Tannen believes in and where Carr determines real learning can occur.
In the article “Dealing with People”, Greg McGrew explains that different types of personality to solve the problems of people’s relationship in our society. He classifies people by four types that are dominants, expressives, analyticals, and amiables. Greg begins with dominants who are forceful, confident, sociable, outgoing, and confrontational tend to threat their mental. Secondly, he describes expressives who are also quite forceful and reluctant to reject a suggestion due to concern about relationship. Talking with them is good method of treating expressive people. Then, he points out that analytical people deliberate to get the right answer. Even though they are superior in making decision, they need time to think how to answer the question.
We like to label things in our culture. Those over the age of 65 are called senior citizens. Those under the age of 18 are called children. Anyone falling in between those ages are considered adults and there are certain expectations placed on that demographic. Adults are the backbone of society, responsible for basically just about everything. Television reflects that responsibility, as adults are usually portrayed as hard-working, career-oriented, and often married and raising children. With television reinforcing these expectations, many young people have probably felt that they need to grow into these roles and become responsible adults. A decade ago, however, NBC’s sitcom Seinfeld debuted challenging these social preconceptions of what an adult should be.
J. J. Arnett argues his theory about a developmental stage individuals go through of 18-25 year olds as a new concept, (Arnett, 2000, pp. 469). He describes emerging adulthood as being a sustained period of time where this age group, as mentioned previously, explores their roles preceding being an adult. These movements can include events similarly by taking longer than previous years to get married and have children, moving back in with their parents at a point during this age span, exploring self-identities, not feeling like an adult and feelings of self-failure. James E. Cote, who is a previous colleague of Arnett argues the opposite about this concept being an unexperienced developmental stage Arnett calls, “Emerging Adulthood”. Cote states
Jacob Riis is clearly a trained historian since he was given an education to become a change in the world-- he was a well educated American newspaper reporter, social reformer, and photographer who, with his book How the Other Half Lives, shocked the conscience of his readers with factual descriptions of slum conditions in New York City. In 1870, Jacob Riis immigrated to the United States without any economic resources and unable to find a source of income to help him. This leads to his perceptions about the topic because he also states in the book that the various jobs he occupied were low paying and he experienced poverty in the city of New York as well, yet for a short period of time. Riis mentions the injustice of unsanitary and dangerous
Emerging Adulthood represents the period of development from late teens through their twenties, mainly focusing on the ages 18-25. This is the period which people start exploring and realizing the capabilities of their lives, which then helps them characterize as adults and no longer teenagers. This topic of psychology is compelling to me because it’s a stage that every adult has lived through, it’s interesting that we have all experienced it differently based on our life circumstances and demographics. It’s interesting to see the changes throughout the years and eventually it will be easier for young people to explore these years as more young adults are going to school nowadays. It teaches me to further understand why emerging adults go through
The TV Show I have chosen to analyze for this Media Appraisal is an ABC Family series Switched at Birth. One of the main characters in the story has been deaf since she was 3 years old, and two other characters are part of a deaf family. I chose to watch this show because I am currently in my second semester of ASL courses at Pitt, and thought it would be interesting to see how the characters portrayed this communication disorder. Switched at Birth is an American television series on Netflix set in Kansas City. The show is about two teenage girls and their families who have found out that the daughters were switched at the hospital when they were born.
Becoming an adult is signified differently in every culture, in America, reaching middle class status is one way that is used to indicate adulthood. To obtain middle class status one would need to acquire a job, become financially stable, get a house, and have a family. The “Mood Economy”, self-reliance, and distrust in institutions, as stated in Silva’s Coming Up Short, have reshaped what it means to become an adult. Replacing the traditional white picket fence ideals with new neoliberal ones. Although middle class status is still a goal for a lot of individuals, the number of people who reach middle class status has diminished significantly over the years. By examining the new milestones that mark adulthood and evaluating how the state reproduces little social mobility through “Attacking Solidarity” mentioned in Requiem for the American Dream, we can get a better idea of how the middle class disappeared before us.
Extensive demographic and cultural shifts have taken place over the past few decades that have made late adolescence and early twenties into a new transitional developmental period known as emerging adulthood for young individuals across industrialized societies. Arnett (2000) argues that emerging adulthood is a “distinct period of the life course” that is “characterized by change and exploration of possible life directions” (469). Additionally, a critical area of identity exploration during emerging adulthood is love and romantic relationships. Arnett contends that “demographic changes in the timing of marriage and parenthood in recent decades has led to prolonged periods of adolescence and delayed adulthood transitions” (470). By postponing
In “Living like Weasels”, Dillard explores the concepts of the interconnectedness of nature as well the concepts of freedom and choice, both of which are quintessential transcendentalist ideas. This essay also seemed to me as strongly reminiscent of Thoreau’s Walden, another transcendentalist work. The central event in this essay was the encounter between Dillard and a weasel while she is visiting Hollin’s Pond. They lock eyes and seem to share an intimate moment, which Dillard describes as “a sudden beating of brains, with all the charge and intimate grate of rubbed balloons.” This is a pivotal point in the essay because it is after this moment that she begins to consider the way the weasel lives and examines the benefits of living animalistically over living as humans typically do.
Middle adulthood is the generatively vs. stagnation stages in which an adult must care of others and realize that they need a family or a legacy. During this stage, people will nurture their own family or find ways to nurture others that need to be nurtured outside their immediate family. If an adult does not overcome the crisis during this stage, then they will not grow which will result in them being selfish and
“Definitions of ‘youth’ in Western societies usually refer to the life stage between childhood and adulthood, the transitional period between being dependant and becoming independent” (Kehily, 2007). The age of this transition can be best defined by the House of Commons as starting at 16 and ending at 24 years old (2013). This transition from youth to adulthood has altered considerably in recent years; the traditional norms and values that youth once followed are no longer respected or easily attained. Current youth have very different life styles and expectations, consequently; adolescents are taking longer to complete the transition into adulthood. Twenty-five years ago the traditional norms were to get a job straight after school, start courting, get married, save up enough money to set up home and eventually start a family. The fact that this is no longer the norm for the majority of youth reflects that the changes in education, employment, housing, and benefits have affected the model of transition significantly.
The last part was on a reflection on late adulthood, how it is viewed in our individual countries.