Sunday, February 16, 2014

A Tangle of Discourses

I really dont even know where to start so I am just going to start with what has been bothering me about this whole article/research. It is not anything the researcher did or her results ( I found it hard to pick out her actual results, I felt like she just talked). In class we talked about how teenagers are not some alien form and I remember thinking "yea, yea. People dont really think that". Until i read this article. Teenagers really are not some alien form. Yes they have mood swings but so dont adults. Teenagers go through puberty and adults go through menopause or midlife crisis's.  These hormonal changes dont change who we are as individuals. Raby quotes Steinberg in her article, "parents probably project their own discomfort about adolescence onto their children...as a way of avoiding facing the unrest they themselves feel about growing old (1994)". HELLO!!!! The only major difference between these hormonal stages besides age is the fact that adults can make free willing decisions where teenagers still cannot. An adult going through a midlife crisis can essentially do what ever they want. They are free to travel or purchase expensive things where as a teenager literally cant do anything except "rebel" to get their feelings out.

There are plenty of life experiences that help (for better or for worse) mold us (as adults and as children). Adults rebel all the time. Quitting a job or getting a divorce are all some forms of rebellion. These experiences also mold us and can sometimes change the current behavior. When adults go through this they call if life. When teenagers go through it they call it rebellion and starting to find themselves as human beings. But I can argue that our entire lives we are constantly rebelling against different mediums and always trying to find who we are and where we belong in this world.

I feel like I've written a lot about one topic so I want to touch upon the at risk section of her research. I agree with what was said about how we live in different times than our grandparents and it isnt really comparable. Teenagers today are faced with pregnancy, heavier drugs and more stress and pressure. I personally feel the stress and pressure comes directly from the technology we have which ultimately makes it easier to view billions of media outlets daily. Girls and boys alike feel the pressure and stresses of fitting it and looking a certain way because that information is more readily available.

4 comments:

  1. We both mentioned talking about teenagers as an alien form in our class and I could not stop thinking about this, as did you during reading this article!

    ReplyDelete
  2. As I was reading other girls blogs some idea of teenagers being alien form kept coming up. It was def a topic/idea that stuck with a lot of us and I can only imagine we will talk about it in class

    ReplyDelete
  3. I felt the same way you did, it was hard to decipher what her results actually were because the article was to wordy!

    ReplyDelete
  4. I agree when you say that stress and pressure comes from the media. Teens are exposed to all social media outlets and shitty reality tv. They feel like they have to duplicate what is seen on the television in order to be accepted and feel good about themselves.

    ReplyDelete