Joseph A. Montagna
How much time is spent in educational activities and leisure activities is crucial in determining the kind of adult the adolescent is likely to become. There are three main categories of adolescent activities:. productive, maintenance and leisure. The Chicago study received 2,700 reports from the participants during the course of the study. Of these reports 29% reported what may be classified as productive activities, ones which are primarily education related. Thirty-one percent concern maintenance activities, such as eating, bathing, resting, dressing, etc. The remaining 40% of their time was spent in leisure activities: watching T.V., hobbies, socializing, reading not related to school, games, etc.
Compared to other technologically advanced societies, American adolescents spend considerably less time studying. For example, Japanese students reportedly spend approximately 59 hours per week in school or studying (Japanese Finance Ministry). In addition to spending more time each day in school, Japanese students attend school an average of 243 days per year. This is approximately 60 days greater than the average American school year. Similar figures are also reported for students in Soviet Russia. The other side of this coin is time spent working at a job. Forty-one percent of the adolescents in this study reported being employed, working from 5 to 33 hours per week, for an average of 18 hours. These figures are also in sharp contrast with Japanese youth, who work much less (approximately 2 hours per week).
With whom do adolescents spend their time? The reports of the students in the study indicate that they are seldom in the company of adults. Approximately 20% of their time is spent with family and a very small portion of this time is spent with parents only. Other adult company adds a mere 2% to this time. A bit more than one quarter of their waking hours is spent in solitude, and more than half of their time is spent with peers (23% with classmates, 29% with friends). These figures clearly illustrate the influence that peers have on adolescents, or, at least, the potential for having a great influence.
What does the teenager’s life feel like? What is the internal landscape? We have taken a look at where and with whom a teenager spends his time. This gives us a fairly clear picture of the investment of time. What about the investment of psychic energy? The question of when psychic entropy and negentropy occur will give us a clearer picture of
how
life is experienced. For teens to develop into productive individuals, who contribute to society, it is necessary for them to experience enjoyment and order in life. If they derive enjoyment from school we can be reasonably assured that they will turn out to be motivated adults. If they receive enjoyment
only
from idle interactions with peers or in disruptive activities, then we have cause for concern about what they will become in adult life.
The authors of this study consider intrinsic motivation to be the single best indicator of harmony in teenagers’ consciousness. To measure this dimension they asked students to rate how much they “wished” to be doing the activity in which they were engaged when signaled. This measure was the student’s own rating of whether they were doing something because they had to, or because they were truly invested in it. They were also asked to measure their emotional state and cognitive efficiency.
The results of this aspect of the study are astonishing. Twenty-five percent of the time they reported a wish to be doing what they were doing. They reported varying degrees of wishing to be doing something else the rest of the time. However, their ratings of emotional harmony (favorable moods) are positive 71% of the time. Approximately 6% of the time they reported being as happy and cheerful as the rating scale allowed. As one might expect these teenagers were more likely to report positive feelings and high concentration and activation in activities and locations that are less structured by adults (sport, hobbies, games, etc.).
One might be inclined to think that an adolescent’s life is structured to such a point as to be bland and routine. The data reveal that this is not so. The teenager is subject to numerous mood swings in a single day. The students in the study were randomly chosen to provide greater detail about their daily lives for a full week. The reports clearly show that teenagers’ moods fluctuate dramatically. A student could be ecstatic one minute, and in a depressive mood the next. Two case studies are presented in the book. The first one is about a 16 year old “druggie”, Greg. Through his dress and behavior Greg makes it clear that he rejects the school’s goals and the values of the so-called straight community. School is boring to him, and his only excitement is derived from hanging out with his friends, male and female, and in getting high. Greg has mood changes, as does any other adolescent, yet his moods generally stay on the negative side.
Kathy is seventeen years old. She is a good student with clear life goals. She has a serious commitment to playing orchestral music. Her moods swing from utter boredom to exhilaration just as quickly as Greg’s, however, Kathy appears to have more negentropic experiences in a variety of settings. Kathy experiences frustration, yet has learned to channel this frustration into something constructive. For example, when she has a poor practice session with her violin, Kathy uses this feedback to her advantage, making her next one better than ever. Psychic entropy for Kathy seems to improve her performance because she has learned how to use it.
Each of these two students has mood swings. When one places these moods on charts it is easy to see that Greg’s moods are consistently on the negative side. His only negentropic experiences come from getting high or hanging out with his friends. Kathy has moods that go as far on the negative side as Greg’s, yet she has negentropic experiences from a variety of settings, including school. The major difference regarding these moods is how each student handles the challenges and frustrations of their daily lives. For Kathy, she has learned the meaning of the adage “when life deals you lemons, make lemonade.”
The daily lives of adolescents are fraught with things that can, and often do, go wrong. It is not realistic for adolescents to try to avoid conflict and entropy in their experiences. Growing up in our modern society presents a predicament for adolescents to meet standards set up by adults, or reject them. Many adolescents are rejecting these standards, refusing to enlist in the established social order. Each generation has had its own fashion of displaying this rejection; the 50s had beatniks, the 60s had hippies, the 70s had punks, and the 80s have the “what’s in it for me’ kids. Suicide, the third highest cause of teenage death, and drug abuse are just two examples of adolescent rejection of the norms of society. The most important question for today’s adolescents is not “how do I avoid conflict? it should be “How can I learn to live with conflict and use it to promote my personal growth?”
