Youth Culture - Impact On Adolescents

Impact On Adolescents

For decades, adults have worried that youth subcultures were the root of moral degradation and changing values in younger generations. Researchers have characterized youth culture as embodying values that are "in conflict with those of the adult world", Common concerns about youth culture include a perceived lack of interest in education, involvement in risky behaviors like substance use and sexual activity, and engaging extensively in leisure activities. These perceptions have led many adults to believe that adolescents hold different values than older generations and to perceive youth culture as an attack on the morals of current society. These worries have prompted the creation of parenting websites such as theyouthculturereport.com and the Center for Parent Youth Understanding (cpyu.org), whose goal is to preserve the values of older generations in young people.

Despite the attitudes of many adults, there is not a consensus among researchers about whether youth subcultures hold different beliefs than adults do. Some researchers have noted the simultaneous rise in age segregation and adolescent adjustment problems such as suicide, delinquency, and premarital pregnancy. Perhaps the increased prevalence of age segregation contributed to the problems of modern youth, and these problems represent a difference in values. However, most evidence suggests that these youth problems are not a reflection of different morals held by younger generations. Multiple studies have found that most adolescents hold views that are similar to their parents. One study challenged the theory that adolescent cohorts have distanced themselves from their parents by finding that between 1976 and 1982, a time when rates of adolescent problems increased, adolescents became less peer-oriented. A second study’s finding that adolescents’ values were more similar to their parents’ in the 1980s than they were in the 1960s and ‘70s echoes Sebald’s findings. Another study did find differences between adolescents’ and parents’ attitudes, but found that the differences were in the degree of belief, not in the attitude itself.

There may also be pluralistic ignorance on the part of youth regarding how their attitudes compare to peers and parents. A study by Lerner et al. asked college students to compare their attitudes on a number of issues to the attitudes of their peers and parents. Most students rated their attitudes as falling somewhere between their parents' more conservative attitudes and their peers' more liberal attitudes. The authors suggested that the reason for this is that the students perceived their friends as more liberal than they really were.

If adolescents' values are similar to their parents', this raises the question of why adults insist that adolescents inhabit a separate world with different values. One reason may be that the similarities between adolescent and adult values are relatively invisible compared to the differences between these two groups. The way young people dress, the music they listen to, and their language are often more apparent than the values they hold. This may lead adults to overemphasize the differences between youth and other age groups.

Adults may also falsely believe that youth’s assertion of independence in exterior aspects of their life represents a manifestation of a different value system. In reality, sports, language, music, clothing and dating tend to be superficial ways of expressing autonomy—they can be adopted without compromising one’s beliefs or values. Of course, there are some areas in which adolescents’ assertion of autonomy can cause long-term consequences. These include behaviors involving substance use and sexual activity.

The impact of youth culture on deviance and sexual behavior is debatable. Drinking alcohol is normative for adolescents in the United States, with more than 70% of high school students reporting ever having had a drink. Similarly, about 2/3 of teenagers have engaged in sexual intercourse by the time they leave high school. Because they are ubiquitous in adolescence, many researchers include drinking and having sex as aspects of youth culture. Engaging in these activities can definitely have harmful consequences for adolescents, although the majority of adolescents who engage in these risky behaviors do not suffer long-term consequences. The possibilities of addiction, pregnancy, incarceration, and other negative outcomes are some potentially negative effects of participation in youth culture.

However, youth culture may also have benefits for the adolescent. We have already discussed how youth culture may facilitate identity development in the teenage years. Peer influence can also have a positive effect on adolescents' well-being. For example, most teens report that their friends pressure them not to use drugs or engage in sexual activity.