Hey everyone!
Today we are back in action, researching the extended adolescence phenomenon...or at least we are trying to.
We
are looking for articles online about extended adolescence, and Jen’s
first instinct was to check academic journals. But it looks like so far,
the phenomenon has been written about more it in the media than
academically. So, we shifted gears in our research to media-based
resources.
Many
resources we found are news articles talking about current trends and
some self-help or “beware of” guides. Many of these so far contain facts
we were generally already aware of, but were looking for outside
sources and speculation and perhaps even statistics on. There are a few sources, however, that are looking at it in
a more sophisticated manner than we had expected.
NPR did a story that is in the vein of what were are looking for, you can read it and listen to the podcast here.
The article focuses more on how the extended adolescence phenomenon
has affected boys/men than girls/women, but it is interesting and
important none-the-less. In fact it applies to our paper in an
interesting way because it shows the differences between Peter and Wendy
are still relevant and realistic in today’s world. It also connects the
EA phenomenon to some elements of daily life that we may not have
determined important otherwise--such as extended life expectancy and the
man’s role within a family structure.
Max
also found the The Youth Cartel, which, while a faith based site and
organization, they actually held an entire Extended Adolescence
Symposium and created an ebook on the subject. You can see that here. We’re hoping they could be very useful.
We
are curious, considering the Cartel has religious bearings, as to what
their analysis and discussion of the phenomenon is as religion is
noticeably absent from the page for their symposium and perhaps it is an
objective look.
Another source we found is a report titled “Extended adolescence: What UK and international
research exists on extended adolescence?“,
which links to a PDF of the report. This one is going to be important
because it shows the research that has been done into this phenomenon on
a global scale, not just in America. It will contextualize what’s going
on in our country within the setting of the entire world. This
particular report is extensive and it covers not only what kind of
research has been done, but the conclusions which have been drawn from
that research. The report is from 2012, making it a fantastic
contemporary assessment of research done on this topic. This is exactly
the kind of resource we will want to go over with a fine-toothed comb.
Another article, from last December, Why Millennials Aren't Growing Up
seems interesting and worth exploring as it is an interview with Robin
Marantz Henig and her daughter Samantha Henig, who together wrote the
book Twentysomething: Why Do Young Adults Seem Stuck? following
the viral success of an article Robin wrote in 2010, “What Is It About
20-Somethings?”. As an actual book on the subject, and co-written by an
actual twentysomething, I feel both the above article, an interview and
discussion, and the actual book could be of some use if picked over.
Apparently
Viacom did a marketing report called “The Golden Age of Youth” and
while we found several marketing articles about the report, we haven’t
been able to locate the report itself. Viacom is of course the
entertainment powerhouse that boasts both Nickelodeon and MTV among
their many properties, so being able to define the “young adult” age
group is critical to understanding their target demographic.
Overall,
we found enough links to fill about two and a half pages. Most came
from google scholar or google searching the term “Extended Adolescence.”
If you have any other ideas where we can search for sources, send them
our way!
