Restrictions on physical movement

Teenagers spend countless hours doing things they would prefer not to do, whether it be working or spending hours behind school desks processing information and concepts that often come across as abstract or irrelevant. Even excellent students say that most of the time they are in school they would rather be “somewhere else.” Many Western adolescents prefer to spend their time with friends in settings with minimal adult supervision.

The layouts of contemporary American communities—especially suburban ones—cause some teens to spend as many as four hours each day just getting to and from school, activities, work, and friends’ houses, yet getting from place to place is not something they have control over until they obtain a driver’s license (an event that became a major rite of passage for adolescents in much of the developed world). But even with access to a car, many teenagers lack appropriate places to go and rewarding activities in which to participate. Many engage with digital devices or digital media or spend time with peers in their free time.

Adolescents generally find that activities involving physical movement—sports, dance, and drama, for example—are among the most pleasurable and gratifying. Ironically, the opportunities for participation in such activities have dwindled, largely because budget concerns have led schools to cut many nonacademic subjects such as physical education. In some American public schools, extracurricular activities have been greatly curtailed or no longer exist.

Absence of meaningful responsibility

In the 1950s the increasingly important teenage market became a driving force in popular music (especially rock music), film, television, and clothing. Indeed, in those countries experiencing the post-World War II economic boom, adolescence was transformed by the emergence of teenagers as consumers with money to spend. In the contemporary developed world, adolescents face a bewildering array of consumer choices that include television programs, movies, magazines, CDs, cosmetics, computers and computer paraphernalia, clothes, athletic shoes, jewelry, and games. But while many teenagers in these relatively affluent countries have no end of material amusements and distractions, they have few meaningful responsibilities, in sharp contrast both to their counterparts in countries struggling merely to survive and to earlier generations.

Alexander the Great (356–323 bce) was still a teenager when he set out to conquer a large part of the known world at the head of his father’s Macedonian armies. Lorenzo de’ Medici (1449–92) was an adolescent when his father sent him to Paris to work out subtle financial deals with the king of France. On a less exalted level, until a few generations ago, boys as young as age five or six were expected to work in factories or mines for 70 or more hours a week. In almost all parts of the world, girls were expected to marry and take on the responsibilities of running a household as early as possible.

In 1950 German-born American psychoanalyst Erik H. Erikson described adolescence in modern Western societies as a “moratorium,” a period of freedom from responsibilities that allows young people to experiment with a number of options before settling on a lifelong career. Such a moratorium may be appropriate in a culture marked by rapid changes in vocational opportunities and lifestyles. If young people are excluded from responsibilities for too long, however, they may never properly learn how to manage their own lives or care for those who depend on them.

Of course some adolescents create astonishing opportunities for themselves. William Hewlett and David Packard were teens when each began experimenting with electronic machines, and they founded the Hewlett-Packard Company when they were only in their mid 20s. As an adolescent, Microsoft Corporation cofounder Bill Gates was already formulating the business strategy that just a few years later would dumbfound the IBM colossus and make him one of the wealthiest men in the world. By and large, however, most teens play a waiting game, expecting to start “really living” only after they leave school. As useful as these years can be in preparing teens for their future roles in society, this isolation from “real” life can be enormously frustrating. In order to feel alive and important, then, many teenagers express themselves in ways that seem senseless to the rest of the population.

Isolation from adults

In many public schools in the United States, student-teacher ratios of between roughly 12 and 25 (depending on whether the school is private or public) mean that the classroom atmosphere is influenced considerably more by peers than by teachers. At home teenagers spend at least several hours each day without parents or other adults present. Moreover, during the little time when adolescents are at home with their parents, the family typically watches television or the children disappear to study, play games, listen to music, or communicate with friends on computers, phones, or other devices.

Estrangement from parents has clear effects. Teens who do little and spend little time with their parents are likely to be bored, uninterested, and self-centred. Lack of positive interaction with adults is particularly problematic in urban settings that had once enjoyed a lively “street-corner society,” where men traditionally shared their experiences with younger ones in a setting that was casual and relaxed. This vital facet in the socialization of young men has largely disappeared to the detriment of individual lives and communities. In its place, peer influence can be counterproductive by reinforcing a sense of underachievement or sanctioning deviant behaviour.

Deviance

With little power and little control over their lives, teens often feel that they have marginal status and therefore may be driven to seek the respect that they feel they lack. Without clear roles, adolescents may establish their own pecking order and spend their time pursuing irresponsible or deviant activities. For example, unwed teen motherhood is sometimes the result of a desire for attention, respect, and control, while most gang fights and instances of juvenile homicide occur when teenagers (boys and girls alike) feel that they have been slighted or offended by others. Such deviance can take many forms. Insecurity and rage often lead to vandalism, juvenile delinquency, and illegal use of drugs and alcohol. Violence and crime, of course, are as old as humankind.

Contemporary juvenile violence is often driven by the boredom young people experience in a barren environment. Even the wealthiest suburbs with the most lavish amenities can be “barren” when viewed from an adolescent’s perspective. Ironically, suburban life is meant to protect children from the dangers of the big city. Parents choose such locations in the hope that their children will grow up happy and secure. But safety and homogeneity can be quite boring. When deprived of meaningful activities and responsible guidance, many teens find that the only opportunities for “feeling alive” are stealing a car, breaking a school window, or ingesting a mind-altering drug. A middle-class adolescent caught with jewelry that he had stolen from a neighbour’s house claimed that the act of stealing had been fun. Like other teenagers, by “fun” he meant something exciting and slightly dangerous that takes nerve as well as skill. In parts of Asia and Africa, similarly, rebel groups have conscripted teens who go on to find excitement and self-respect behind machine guns. Millions of them have died prematurely as a result.

Behavioral scientists have gained valuable insight into the conditions that cause teenage strife. In many cases, adults are in the position to alleviate some of the frictions that make intergenerational relations more strained than they need to be. Research indicates that those adolescents who have the opportunity to develop a relationship with an adult role model (parental or otherwise) are more successful than their peers in coping with the everyday stresses of life.