During this period of identity experimentation, teens can be moody, and their self-esteem may waver. Early adolescents tend to be more troubled by day-to-day fluctuations in self-esteem than older adolescents, since they are more likely to base their self-esteem on how people in their environment react to their behavior and appearance.19 The egocentrism seen in toddlers and preschoolers re-emerges in this period, but manifests itself in new ways. For example, teens often feel as if everyone is looking at them, as if they are performing for an attentive audience. David Elkind refers to this form of egocentrism as the “imaginary audience.” Teens often believe that their experiences are unique and that no one feels, or has ever felt, the way they do. “No one understands me!” is an oft-heard lament at this age. Elkind calls this form of egocentrism the “personal fable.”20 Because teens frequently feel different from everyone else, they often experience a sense of invincibility. Combined with their dopamine-related sensitivity to rewards, this sense of invincibility can exacerbate their tendency to engage in risky behaviors.
Teens’ increased self-focus means that they can become incredibly preoccupied with their appearance. They see that their bodies are growing, that they are becoming gangly and moving clumsily, and as a result, they may feel uncomfortable or even awkward in their bodies and social situations. Girls want nothing more than to live up to the feminine “ideal,” and boys desperately want to be tall and broad shouldered. If boys and girls believe they fall short of these ideals, they become uncertain and insecure about their appearance.
Given these gendered ideals, it is perhaps not surprising that at the onset of adolescence, differences in gender-specific preferences return with a vengeance. Indeed, both boys and girls prefer entertainment with noticeably gender-specific characters.21 Girls want to see feminine girls, and boys want to see macho boys. Much as they do in their physical social environment, they derive social lessons and solutions to their problems from entertainment programs. Girls want to know how popular actresses solve their problems, and boys similarly want to see how tough-guy actors handle their concerns. Like tweens, they prefer movies and shows featuring somewhat older, socially successful actors whom they admire and can identify with. This is certainly nothing new. Almost a century ago, when the movie industry emerged, young teens fell under the sway of motion pictures—with nearly 70 percent of them acting out scenes that they had seen in a movie.22
Although entertainment media provide teens with many examples of potential identities to practice with, social media have provided them with many new opportunities to experiment with their identities. As early adolescents work on building their self-concept and self-esteem, they find social media irresistible.23 Two things are important for adolescents trying to develop a stable self-concept and self-esteem: the approval of their social environment and the possibility of influencing that environment. Social media offers teens both. They can tinker endlessly with their self-presentation on the Internet (as with selfies). They can decide which photographs they will upload and how many; they have more time to think about what they will and will not communicate; and with a great deal of practice, they can optimize the feedback that they receive on their profile.
Today, approximately half of teens sometimes experiment with their identity on the Internet, with girls doing so more frequently than boys. Adolescents experiment with their identity online mainly to gauge other people’s reactions to their online behavior. They are typically more flirtatious online than offline, and indicate that they are less inhibited when communicating online than offline. Boys and girls do not differ in the frequency with which they experiment with their identities online, but they do differ with respect to the nature of that experimentation. Girls pretend to be older and beautiful more often than boys, while boys more frequently pretend to be macho.24 We return to this topic in more detail in our chapter on social media (chapter 13).
Intimacy: WhatsApping with Friends
Once boys and girls enter puberty, they spend more time with peers and less time with their parents. They develop a seemingly compulsive need to communicate with their friends, in person or through their tablets and phones, and preferably from early in the morning until late at night. Close friendships in adolescence play a crucial role in helping youth develop their identity and practice the skills needed for intimacy. For most teens, friendships provide an important opportunity to evaluate their physical changes and experiences, particularly with friends who are similar to them. Close friends serve as an important sounding board for comparing experiences, identifying standards and values in the peer group, and learning which behaviors are and are not acceptable.
Before age thirteen, teens typically hang out in same-sex groups and generally consider members of the opposite sex “dumb” or “irritating.” That soon changes. Early adolescents often have one or two best friends or buddies and also belong to a group of friends—known as a clique—who interact frequently both online and off. Cliques are usually made up of two to ten members (five or six on average).25 Girls typically organize themselves into cliques at around age eleven, boys at about thirteen. Although cliques perform the same function for both genders, girls are more likely to use them to share intimate information, whereas boys tend to focus more on games and sports.
Cliques are usually inspired by subcultures. Unlike cliques, subcultures are considerably larger. Their members share certain interests, for example, a preference for particular musical genres, fashions, or politics, but they do not necessarily communicate with or even know one another. Subcultures first emerged in the 1960s, initially fueled by dissatisfaction with the establishment, for example, the hippies and yippies of the sixties and the punk rockers of the eighties. Subcultures in the new millennium are seemingly less rebellious, conspicuous, and outspoken than those in the past. But that does not mean that subcultures are less important than before for identity development.
Since the advent of the Internet, adolescents have had more opportunities than ever to validate their opinions and behavior against peer group standards. That is perhaps why their clothes, behavior, and music styles need not be as conspicuous as those of their counterparts from earlier generations. Subcultures traditionally evolved in the wake of spectacular new musical genres, and we still see subculture formation among teens who identify with a specific performer or entertainment program. For example, Justin Bieber’s fans are known as “Beliebers,” Taylor Swift’s fans are “Swifties,” Lady Gaga’s are “Little Monsters,” and the devotees of the television series Glee call themselves “Gleeks.”
Early adolescents usually have a strong desire to conform to the standards of their cliques and subcultures. They are no longer interested in toys, and they avoid products that they perceive as being marketed to children. Their strong desire to conform to the standards of their clique and subculture makes them extremely brand conscious. And they are especially interested in products and media that have a social function and that express their identity, including music, social media, games, books and magazines, sports apparel, movies, concerts, dancing, and partying.
Sexuality: Love, Sex, and the Media
One of the key tasks in developing autonomy during adolescence is to begin to understand and become comfortable with one’s sexuality. Sexuality does not suddenly emerge with the onset of puberty, but puberty does mark the first time that young people are both physically able to reproduce and cognitively advanced enough to think about it.26 It makes sense, then, that puberty marks a time when sexual development is most intense. Unlike sexuality in childhood, sexuality in puberty is closely associated with self-consciousness (“What if he rejects me?”) and the ability to think hypothetically (“What’s the best way for me to act now?”). For most early adolescents, sexuality is closely associated with falling in love and romance.27
For the vast majority of early adolescents, puberty marks the first time that they become interested in having a boyfriend or girlfriend. In these first “puppy love” relation
ships (typically around twelve or thirteen years of age), sexuality plays little or no role.28 Instead, couples often hold hands and perhaps kiss. These initial relationships typically do not last more than a few weeks. More than anything, they serve as an identity experiment meant to boost adolescents’ social status and, to a lesser extent, provide early “practice” for later sexuality.
Given teens’ efforts to develop and understand their sexuality, it makes sense that they look to the media for advice about sexual situations and sexual behaviors. They particularly seem to seek out television and movie content that features sexual scenes or sexual innuendo. For example, in addition to content that combines sarcastic humor with sexuality (for example, the American Pie series), teens show increased interest in reality television that places sexuality at the forefront (The Bachelor, Temptation Island). Moreover, relationships and sexuality figure prominently in most drama series and movies (Gossip Girls, Glee, The Vampire Diaries). This is nothing new, though. In fact, a look at the most popular teen programs as of the 1970s shows that sexuality has long been a key ingredient of such programs.29
Although sexuality in television and film has largely remained a staple in teens’ media diets, the emergence of digital media has brought about an entirely new way to access sexual content. In fact, a sizable number of teens regularly use the Internet to obtain advice about sex or to discuss moral, emotional, and social issues related to sex.30 The Internet provides them with a (perceived) safe space, not only to talk about sex with their friends but also to actively look for sex and pornography. For example, our work in the Netherlands has shown that almost 50 percent of thirteen-year-old boys and nearly 20 percent of thirteen-year-old girls report deliberately searching for sex and porn online.31 Similar estimates have emerged in other industrialized countries.32 And with the emergence of selfie culture, the Internet seems to supports teens’ need for social comparison: nearly 74 percent of teenage boys and 82 percent of girls have looked for sexy or seminude photographs (“sexy selfies”) of their friends in the past year.33
Online sexual exploration seems to be even more important for certain minority groups, such as homosexual youth. For these groups, online communication can serve as a relatively safe way of exploring sensitive issues such as homosexuality, bisexuality, or transsexuality—sexual identities that are often still subject to taboos. The Internet provides these minority groups with the chance to experiment and prepare for the process of coming out publicly.34 Homosexual adolescents may indeed benefit from websites such as ItGetsBetter.org and TrevorProject.org.35 And more recently, we have seen the emergence of special dating apps for homosexual youth and adults (for example, Grindr), although too little is still known about the benefits and drawbacks of these apps.
Late Adolescence
Late adolescence (sixteen to nineteen years old) is the period that follows puberty. The physical changes continue, but they are less noticeable, and their impact on self-concept and self-esteem is milder than during early adolescence. While early and late adolescents share many preferences, they also differ in several important ways. One important cognitive change in late adolescence is the rapid improvement of so-called executive functions, which refer to the cognitive functions needed for effective, efficient, socially adapted behavior. Executive-functioning skills are present during the preschool years, but they continue to improve during late adolescence. In comparison to early adolescents, late adolescents are better able to control their impulses, allowing them to focus and concentrate on tasks longer.
Another important change in late adolescents is their improved ability to grasp the broader context of a problem or decision. Whereas early adolescents struggle to see the bigger picture as they argue and weigh alternatives, late adolescents have less trouble identifying the important facts about a situation and the effects of that situation on other things. Late adolescents also have little trouble putting their ideas into words. Furthermore, along with advancements in executive function, late adolescents develop intuition—something many experts consider necessary for making good decisions. As a result, they are less inclined than their younger counterparts to pursue immediate, dopamine-fueled rewards, and are more likely to start thinking about the future and possible careers.36 Indeed, starting around sixteen years of age, adolescents’ preference for risk taking begins to decline.37
Among late adolescents, media preferences are in a transitional state. While they still share many of the same preferences of early adolescents, they also share many of the preferences of young adults. For example, they continue to feel attracted to fast-paced media and still show some interest in television and music targeting teenagers (although this starts to fade). But their understanding of humor is more advanced and mimics that of adults. No longer are their cognitive development and social-emotional development the main predictors of their appreciation of humor; other factors, such as educational level and cultural background, come to play an important role. Late adolescents are able to grasp all forms of adult humor in advertising, public information campaigns, or entertainment, including word play, hints and sexual innuendo, and parody. By the end of adolescence, teens are primarily reading magazines, watching television programs, and buying products meant for adults. Therefore, the best way to reach late adolescents is to address them as the mature people that they are soon becoming.
Too Old for Conflicts, Too Old for Facebook
While peers remain crucial during late adolescence, the relationship between teens and their parents often improves during this time. In late adolescence, teens start to have a bigger say in family decisions. They can persuade their parents by using adult arguments. As a result, their parents come to view them more like fellow adults. While early adolescents also try to secure a more powerful role for themselves in the family, their attempts are often awkward and unsuccessful. They may pester their parents, for example, or go head-to-head with them. By late adolescence, however, the relationship between teenagers and parents has often improved and become more intimate. Parents are more likely to talk to their nearly grown children about adult matters and may also ask them for help and support.
Late adolescents still feel a tremendous need to communicate with peers. By this period, many friendships have developed into full-fledged, intimate, and caring relationships that resemble those between adults. The quality of their friendships becomes increasingly important. It is crucial to late adolescents that their friends understand them and that they can count on one another. Unlike early adolescents, who use the number of friends on a social networking site as an important marker of status, late adolescents are less interested in racking up as many Facebook friends as possible. Now, their friendships help them grasp the meaning of intimacy; they learn to disclose themselves appropriately (not too intimate, but not too distant either). They also come to see that friendship involves give-and-take, and that loyalty and trust are paramount.
By the end of adolescence, teenagers are somewhat less under the sway of cliques and crowds—although there are significant individual differences in this regard. For some youth, cliques continue to play an important role until they are well into their twenties and even beyond. In general, though, peer pressure and cliques are not as intense or influential as they were during puberty. Instead, late adolescents tend to be more focused on communicating with individuals than with their group. Moreover, romantic relationships—and the influence of these relationships on behaviors—begin to take precedence.
There Is a First Time for Everything
During early adolescence, teens move toward autonomy by working to discover their identity, developing intimacy, and beginning to understand their sexuality. This process continues among late adolescents, who are still working on stabilizing their identity and self-esteem.38 In doing so, they still experience a strong need for introspection, that is, a need to examine their own experiences and emotions. For many teens (particularly girls), this need for introspection leads them to keep a diary or a b
log—both of which can be a good channel for analyzing experiences and feelings. Indeed, research has shown that blog writing during adolescence is associated with improved self-esteem.39
One of the largest differences between early and late adolescence is associated with sexuality. Whereas early adolescents are beginning to discover their sexuality and perhaps may have their first “puppy love,” it is during late adolescence that most teenagers have their first sexual experience with another person.40 While their level of sexual activity primarily depends on the onset and course of puberty, other factors also play a significant role. For example, low-educated adolescents tend to engage in sexual activity at a younger age than high-educated ones. Religious adolescents, on the other hand, have their first sexual experience at a later age than their nonreligious peers.41 In all situations, these first sexual relationships are often deeply emotional. Everyone remembers the passion of his or her first love affair. It is the stuff of many song lyrics, and the fodder for many Internet articles on how to get over one’s first love.
Conclusion
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