Males argues that we often portray youth (via media) as either vicious or fragile… scapegoating them for the ills in society that often adults are far more susceptible to commit. Extreme examples are media portrayals of youth following Columbine or the idea all African American youth are gang members. More subtle examples include “common sense” notions that youth overuse drugs and have indiscriminate sex, when documentation show youth far more “sober” and far less promiscuous than their baby boomer parents. Preoccupation with youth “social ills” mask adult “bad behavior” and also stereotypes youth so we quarantine them from leadership and anethsetize ourselves to real personal issues since we reduce it to a “teen” problem. Here I think Clark can open doors by exposing us to real personal issues without stereotyping all youth in a similar manner.

I think the same scapegoating happens with children as well, where we reframe adult agendas in “child’s clothing” and then force children to
participate since we are doing it for “them” anyway. (Example, the battle for prayer in public schools is for whom?)

Are teens less nacissistic today than in the past? I doubt that anyone truly knows because of all the issues of survey saturation and fatigue, but my hunch is that they are not any worse than we were when we were their age. That at least seems to be one developmental issue we all participate in.

all in all the topic is quite interesting and the two articles together could create some good evaluative discussion among youth pastors if approached with an open mind. both the Twenge study and the response hold some truth…it doesn’t have to be the case that they’re mutually exclusive. some sense of self is certainly a good thing. the question is whether it’s been taken to an extreme. or, possibly, using that same question compartively to prior generations. either way, i thought both articles suffered from over-generalization.

i also think that Jeff moulton has some good thoughts, too, in questioning the validity of the chosen methods.

Interesting read.

The teens are primarily going to answer one of two ways – either they are going to say what they think you want to hear, or they are going to say what they think will get you the most interested. Very few will answer with the factual truth.