READ FULLY FIRST

1

Part I:

Subject A: T.O.B., male, age 64

1. Did you attend high school? Did you want to, why or why not? Describe the kinds of

subjects you were required to take. Describe the kinds of homework you had. Did most of the

adolescents in your neighborhood go to high school?

- Yes, I was not excited or interested in attending high school. I wasn’t happy with my life,

specifically that I wasn’t doing well because my family and parents were divorced and

drinking. Some subjects I was required to take would be English, Math, Science,

History,; all the common ones. My favorite one was Science because I liked learning

about interesting human developments and I could learn about all types of things because

science encompassed so much. I had a lot of homework, but I rarely did anything. We

were told to read the books and answer the questions. Most of the kids in my

neighborhood went to high school and a lot of them graduated. Even though I went, I

didn’t graduate and dropped out. I got my GED and went into the Marine Corps.

2. How many hours per week did you work (not including school-related work)? Did you

contribute to the family income? Did you want to go to work, why or why not?

- In my senior year, I had a couple of jobs. I poured concrete and worked on insulation on

houses. I also drove a hay cutter and did agricultural work. I also was a janitor in the

National Guard. I worked on the weekends mostly, full 8 hour shifts. I went to school

everyday during the week, so I didn’t get to work then. I didn’t contribute too much to

the family income, only when we really needed the extra cash, it was just my money that

I spent on beer, drugs, and going to the movies. I wanted to go to work to make some

2

money because we never had money and we were always poor, so I wanted to have some

that I could rely on.

3. Describe your relationship with your parents as a teenager. Describe the kinds of

restrictions or rules your parents placed on your behavior.

- Not good. My parents were very big drinkers and I held a lot of resentment towards them.

I was rebellious and doing bad things, but they didn’t care. Our relationship was bad. No,

I didn’t have many rules or restrictions on my behavior, my parents didn’t care.

4. Describe the riskiest behavior you or one of your friends took during your teen-age years.

- We just drank, drugs, broke in places, and stole. This was pretty common in my teenage

years with my pals. We were bad influences upon each other and had a hard time

stopping.

5. Describe the kinds of clothes you wore for school; dates; outings. Were you concerned

about fashion?

- I honestly just wore whatever was in style, I slightly wanted to dress nicely for school

and not be perceived as run-down. While I wasn’t too concerned about fashion, I only

really wore whatever my parents could afford.

5. At what age were you allowed to date? Describe the dating activities that were common

for teenagers in your time.

- I was allowed to date whenever I wanted and we generally went out to the movies

whenever I wanted to go on one. I usually stayed with my buddies and drank. Again, my

parents just didn’t care.

6. Describe how you and your friends would spend your free time.

3

- We usually drank, did drugs, and acted stupid. We broke in places, ran around, went to

the movies. We ran wild.

7. Describe your most nagging problem as a teenager.

- My most nagging problem as a teenager would probably be my mom and step-dad always

drinking. It made me angry and felt terrible and I grew resentment towards it and

developed bad habits myself.

8. Describe what you see as the main difference between the teenagers of today and teen-

agers in the past. What do you think of today’s teenagers?

- In this day and age, teenagers are worse because they have less moral and ethical

character, which is pretty bad coming from someone as bad as I was. Or maybe they’re

just as bad as I was, but more pronounced today. There’s no respect. I think that the

teenagers today are generally more coddled, more sheltered, more entitled than we were

back then. They just have no respect for anyone.

9. What advice would you give teen-agers today?

- Some advice I’d give them would be to go to college, don’t waste your time drinking and

partying, and get school behind you. Live your life and if you don’t do it that way, you’ll

have a miserable life. Be on the straight and narrow path.

4

Subject B: B.N., male, age 23

1. Did you attend high school? Did you want to, why or why not? Describe the kinds of subjects

you were required to take. Describe the kinds of homework you had. Did most of the adolescents

in your neighborhood go to high school?

- I attended high school from 2014 to 2018. I wanted to go because I always had a drive to

learn something more. Elementary school classes were too easy and I wanted material

that challenged me. In high school the faculty really wanted you to pass Algebra 2 and

had a heavy emphasis on science. Two years of foreign language were required but they

never specified two consecutive years of foreign language, so I took French and Spanish

when it was offered. The classes I took were college-oriented with the expectation of

transferring to a four-year institution. AP Exams were encouraged from a teacher's

perspective and a social one as most people in my grade took and passed these placement

tests. Most adolescents in my neighborhood went to high school as we know it but the

increased gun violence (Sandy Hook in 2012) made some of my peers pull out of the

public system in favor of homeschooling. But for the most part, they went through the

public system.

2. How many hours per week did you work (not including school-related work)? Did you

contribute to the family income? Did you want to go to work, why or why not?

- I did not go to work while I was in high school. I did not contribute financially because

my time was eaten up by high school itself. I wish I could have gone to work for extra

pocket money but the extra time I spent studying helped me graduate.

2. Describe your relationship with your parents as a teenager. Describe the kinds of restrictions

or rules your parents placed on your behavior.

5

- My parents had high expectations for me as I was the only child of 7 to have a desire to

go to college. This in turn created a lot of pressure to perform, but the trade-off being

they were supportive in social and academic extracurriculars. Relationship with my

parents was overall positive.

4. Describe the riskiest behavior you or one of your friends took during your teen-age years.

- My friends and I played it safe in high school and never got into any serious trouble. I

would say the riskiest behavior I did was starting fights with students after they threw

trash at me. No drugs, no gangs, no overbearingly delinquent behavior.

5. Describe the kinds of clothes you wore for school; dates; outings. Were you concerned about

fashion?

- I wore neutral clothes, typically a variation of my favorite colors and generally cooler

tones. I favored large jeans as pants close to the skin made me feel uncomfortable. My

wardrobe consisted of t-shirts and hoodies with no respect to fashion. I wore what I

wanted. I embarrassed my parents more than I embarrassed myself.

6. At what age were you allowed to date? Describe the dating activities that were common for

teenagers in your time.

- I was allowed to formally date at 16. Dates typically consisted of going to the movies,

going to the mall, bowling, and getting fast food for an hour or so at a time.

7. Describe how you and your friends would spend your free time.

- My friends and I played online games together in our free time. We didn't live close by to

have frequent events, so we made up for it by playing party games or adventure-style

games on live calls.

6

8. Describe your most nagging problem as a teenager.

- My most nagging problem as a student would be my size. I was overweight but that's not

what bothered me. I was physically larger than most of my classmates and that generated

passive fear of me in my grade. This culminated in my sophomore year of high school

when I was called to the office by reports of my classmates thinking I was a school

shooter. They interviewed me and did a background check of my search history. The

whole process took an hour but I felt embarrassed and betrayed by people I considered

friends. This created a permanent divide between me and my classmates until I

graduated.

9. Describe what you see as the main difference between the teenagers of today and teen-agers in

the past. What do you think of today’s teenagers?

- I noticed that teenagers of today are more connected by social media than ever before.

When I was in school facebook, instagram, and snapchat were in its relative infancy. The

general gist of what the platforms were helped create social circles with some very

unhealthy exceptions. Today tech companies have perfected their algorithms and lead

kids in varying directions. I think this results in generally deviant behavior and

unwillingness to learn. An example I can think of is with online trends. On TikTok there

existed a trend of destroying and vandalizing school property and it ran rampant for

months. This had genuine real-world consequences because teenagers wanted some

seconds in the spotlight. The interconnectedness is a blessing but also a curse, even more

so when I was a teenager.

7

10. What advice would you give teen-agers today?

- The advice I would give to teenagers would be to find your love in school. It doesn't have

to be academic, it could be the little things like sports or clubs. You're forced to go for 12

years, so find what you love so the day-to-day is a little more easier.

8

Part II:

1. How did you follow the ethical policies as required?

- Before I started each of the interviews, I made sure I informed my two subjects about

their rights as my interviewees. I let them know that they have the right to privacy and

both have the right to refuse continuation of the interview. I also let them know that they

both have the right to review the questions before agreeing to the interview and have the

right to receive a copy of the completed assignment. I let them know that I’d only use the

first names or initials of my interviewees. Doing this before each interview made them

feel better about answering.

2. Describe what adolescence was like in the past and what changes seemed to have occurred.

- In the past, there seems to have been a lot less caring on the parental side. For T.O.B., his

parents didn’t give much of a hoot about what he did or what bad things he practiced. I

think it might have to do with the concept that each generation tries to do better than their

parents did for them, as well as different social norms being implemented.

3. Describe how your interviewees’ adolescence is different from what you experienced as an

adolescent.

- T.O.B’s and B.N.’s adolescences were different from mine because T.O.B. had a very

loosely monitored life, B.N. had a very pressured and strict life, and myself, I had kind

parents who loved me and treated me well in my adolescence. Sure there were rough

spots, but I didn’t have as bad of a relationship with my parents as they did.

4. What did you learn about adolescence in our readings that might explain the struggles many

young people are dealing with? Did either of your interviewees experience these struggles?

What theories might apply to explain these issues?

9

- What I learned about adolescence in our readings that explain the struggles many young

people have could be found by this quote: “...it is important to distinguish whether

adolescents are more likely to engage in risky behaviors (prevalence), whether they make

risk-related decisions similarly or differently than adults (cognitive processing

perspective), or whether they use the same processes but value different things and thus

arrive at different conclusions. The behavioral decision-making theory proposes that

adolescents and adults both weigh the potential rewards and consequences of an action.

However, research has shown that adolescents seem to give more weight to rewards,

particularly social rewards, than do adults. Adolescents value social warmth and

friendship, and their hormones and brains are more attuned to those values than to long-

term consequences… (Valdez, 2020, 7.2.1).” There is a lot of peer pressure in society to

do things that you’re not sure you want to do because of social status. I think T.O.B.

definitely experienced this because of the lack of rules from his parents and his negative

influences. A theory to explain this could be Jean Piaget’s belief that children’s cognition

develops in stages.

5. What is your advice for the next generation of teenagers? What have you learned from our

readings that support this advice?

- Some advice I’d give this next generation of teens would probably be to be cautious of

your decisions just to gain approval from your peers. You’re still developing and not

aware of your decisions like you might think you are. Some support from our readings I

can tie this advice to would be Elkind’s theory of imaginary audience, which, “[is an]

adolescents’ belief that other people are as attentive to their behaviors and appearance as

10

they are of themselves (Valdez, 2020, 7.2.1).” They need to remember that everyone isn

going through what you are, just relax and try to have a safe and good time.

6. What is your advice for parents of today’s adolescents? What have you learned from our

readings that support this advice?

- “More often than not the audience is imaginary because in actual social situations

individuals are not usually the sole focus of public attention (Valdez, 2020, 7.2.1).” I

would give this advice to the parents of today’s adolescents because they need to

remember that their teens are going through changes, just like they did. They should try

to think back to how they were and empathize with their children.

7. What are your two favorite citations from the textbook regarding adolescence? Why are these

citations appropriate to your discoveries?

- 1. “More often than not the audience is imaginary because in actual social situations

individuals are not usually the sole focus of public attention (Valdez, 2020, 7.2.1).” This

citation because it is a good reminder that there is honestly not too many eyes on you;

you might think they’re are, but they’re not. This is appropriate to my discoveries

because for B.N., he struggled with the concept of scaring everyone because of his size; if

we took a poll, I doubt that many people would have noticed and been conscious of it.

- 2. “...it is important to distinguish whether adolescents are more likely to engage in risky

behaviors (prevalence), whether they make risk-related decisions similarly or differently

than adults (cognitive processing perspective), or whether they use the same processes

but value different things and thus arrive at different conclusions. The behavioral

decision-making theory proposes that adolescents and adults both weigh the potential

rewards and consequences of an action. However, research has shown that adolescents

11

seem to give more weight to rewards, particularly social rewards, than do adults.

Adolescents value social warmth and friendship, and their hormones and brains are more

attuned to those values than to long-term consequences… (Valdez, 2020, 7.2.1).” This

citation because for T.O.B. because he had a hard time with his social experience; in

younger generations, there is always a stigma that you have to be a certain person or do

certain things to be cool or have a social status, but I wish someone reminded T.O.B. that

you don’t need that; you need to focus on school and your future because those matter

more