what is it like emerging adulthood for you personally? talk about yourself. your own experience.

Emerging Adulthood

Emerging adulthood is a new conception of development that focuses on the period from 18 to 25 years. The understanding was developed by the scholars who believe that this time is special and unique. Late teens and early twenties are those two essential components of the period called emerging adulthood. In order to understand emerging adulthood, it is significant to focus on a theoretical background of emerging adulthood theory. Apart from this, it is significant to differentiate the period of emerging adulthood with adolescence and young adult hood. For ages, they treated this period as a time of transition into adulthood. It was the time when teenagers finished schools, entered colleges and universities, applied for jobs, and get married and have a family.

Jeffrey Jensen Arnett, the American scholar. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Virginia and spent three years for postdoctoral work at the University of Chicago. The researcher was interested in human development and family studies at the University of Missouri, but then he switched his attention to the age period from 18 to 25 years. For a decade, he works on research on emerging adulthood. Arnett did not limit his studies to America, but he also studied emerging adulthood in Denmark in 2005. He is well-informed in young people and adults. Because this is the most significant part of human life with its distinctive characteristics, Arnett is deeply convinced that emerging adulthood should distinguish from other periods of development.

The scholar shows the relations between emerging adulthood and social and economic changes that occurred during the last decades. By this Arnett means, emerging adulthood resulted from four revolutions of the second part of the 20th century: 1) technology revolution; 2) sexual revolution; 3) women’s movements; and 4) the modern movements (Arnett, 2015). Although all these scholars described a period of emerging adulthood, no one defined it as a separate period of life. According to Arnett, emerging adulthood should be distinguished from other terms of development, as it has its characteristics and peculiarities. For example, Arnett mentions “an important demographic characteristic of emerging adulthood is that there is a great deal of demographic variability, reflecting the wide scope of individual volition during these years” (Arnett, 2000).

Emerging adulthood has changed in America where in the past people grow up faster than nowadays because they took responsibilities earlier in the twenties. To explain the core change of emerging adulthood, Jeffery Arnett took our attention to particular social changes in industrialized countries. First, young people became more oriented to career and personal development than family life and parenthood. Unlike decades ago. Second, the period of what so-called transition changed in several years. By this, the scholar Jeffery Arnett means that in the 1970s the median age of marriage in the US was about 21 for young women and 23 for males, while in 1990s these figures changed in 25 for women and 27 for men. Also, researchers found that even the first childbirth age has changed.

Why did the average age of marriage change over the years? Does culture have an impact on the way young people spent their adulthood? To answer these questions, I interviewed view friends who have different cultures.

Almahdi Alsalim 36 years old. He was born in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Growing up there is different than growing in the U.S in several ways. First, the education in Saudi Arabia is dominated by Islamic culture. Thus, they might grow up differently. For example, young people stay with their families until married. There are some who stays forever even after they have married and had kids. However, Almahdi says “I had not felt that I’m an adult until I got married,” I ask do you agree that emerging adulthood is a unique period. And should live it because it won’t come back again, “Definitely, it won’t come back, I agree,” he smiled, “one of the best times in my entire life so far was in the mid-twenties” He added that you are energetic and always ready to try new things. There are no dangerous risks in young people choices at this particular period as much as adults, Almahdi said. Adults at late teens has less opportunity to compensation when they make wrong choice.

My other interviewer Zack 30 years old from the United States. Growing up here has changed. “It became a more severe period of living” Zack commenting. “Young people nowadays rely on themselves such as looking for a job,” Zack said. So it is likely to look for a long-time career rather than searching for a partner to marry.

In addition, Nazeh 31 years old, he is my oldest brother in my family. “Emerging adulthood is not very different than the other periods” Nazeh explains his view on emerging adulthood. It might be different than adolescent in the physical meaning. For example, “the size of the body, brain development, and so.” Nazeh said. How did you know you emerged adulthood I asked, “I haven’t thought of that before, but I knew that I’m not young when I attended college” he added, you become more independent, even though I still live with my family. But college makes you feel responsible for such things.

Relative observations have been made by other scholars that admitted interesting social phenomena associated with youth in industrialized societies. For example, Sam Tanenhaus investigated a new category of young people that is called “the millennials” (Tanenhaus, 2014). He defines these young people as “Generation Nice.” The representatives of this category are young people, aged from 18 to 29, who live in industrialized societies. They are associated with emerging adulthood because these individuals do not yet occupy some particular role in society and are in their personal search. The scholar distinguishes several tendencies that characterize the millennials; they are concerned with their development, they look pretty, they care about their body and diet, and they are creative and stylish, and so on. Another survey by David Dobbs found that teenagers’ behavior patterns sustained revolutionary changes over the last period. The central question under investigation was: “why do teenagers act the way they do?” The author studied the teenage brain and revealed that in the period from 12 to 25 years “the brain undergoes extensive remodeling, resembling a network and wiring upgrade” (Dobbs, 2011). Due to physiological changes that occur during that period, the brain turns into “much faster and more sophisticated organ” (Dobbs, 2011), which affects young personalities and their activities.

Although all these scholars described a period of emerging adulthood, no one defined it as a separate period of life. According to Arnett, emerging adulthood should be distinguished among other stages of development, as it has its characteristics and peculiarities. For example, the scholar mentions that “an important demographic characteristic of emerging adulthood is that there is a great deal of demographic variability, reflecting the wide scope of individual volition during these years” (Arnett, 2000). Also, the scholar defines emerging adulthood as “the only period of life in which nothing is normative demographically” (Arnett, 2000). By this he means that during the early teenage period of development is marked by rather stable demographic criteria. For example, American young people aged 12-17, as a rule, live at home with one or two parents, are not married, do not work officially, do not have children, go to schools. Percentage of alternative options is slight, and the situation for this period of development has remained unchanged for many years. If to compare the period of early teens with the period of emerging adulthood, it becomes clear that demographic criteria are utterly unpredictable and flexible for the second period. What is more, these rules regularly change under the influence of various factors. For example, today American young women tend to choose career rather than family and motherhood in their early twenties while thirty years ago successful marriage was the best option to a young lady. It can be explained by the fact that live in industrialized societies sustains more dynamic development. Therefore, numerous factors affect lifestyle in industrialized societies, such as technological development, cultural interactions, democracy, and others.

Apart from demographic characteristics, emerging adulthood is distinct subjectively. By this the author means that young people on this time of development do not compare them with adult people, and at the main time, they are no more teenagers. Therefore, “the top criterion for the transition to adulthood is accepting responsibility for one’s self and making independent decisions” (Arnett, 2000). One more criterion refers to financial independence, which is also vital for the emerging adulthood. Eventually, the period has is featured by certain individual characteristics. It means that many young people of this period are in their personal search, trying to understand their position in society. That is why many young people enter universities and colleges during this period, as the process of studying assists to the establishment of them as personalities and broaden their personal outlooks.

The scholar explains that young people reach their adulthood more slowly today because the economy became more complicated. Now it takes more time for young people to make their choice, as they realize their responsibility for the choice. From my adulthood experience as I’m experiencing it at the main time have something different than the other periods of life. In this period I felt the changes that occurred on both sides mentally and emotionally. When it comes to the mental growth, it expels the growth of abstract thinking and logical thinking and increases the ability to understand and solve everyday problems and make decisions, as well as develop tendencies and ambitions. Therefore, I became eligible to choose my major. While the emotional development became clear and recognizable. For example, some personal emotions such as self-esteem, taking care of the appearance, and manner of speech.

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