Researching Extended Adolescence: Searching for Mature Reflection on Immaturity

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!