Redefining What Being Young Means
What makes present-day youth culture so distinctive?
Culture is constantly changing, making every cross-section of it unique for a society and an individual. Culture changes with varying environments or the company of people. Essentially, the only thing that is constant about culture is that it is everchanging and inherently unique. How one section of society chooses to redefine various aspects of their lives or how they choose to respond to different problems determines their culture. Similarly, today’s youth is one that has sought to reform its culture by changing how it assigns character traits, how it operates, or creates its present cultural pool.
Assigned character traits refer to specific attributes associated with or assigned to groups based on personal experiences with members of that group (Goodenough, 1957). This sense of cultural understanding is established in contrast to one’s own experiences.
Stemming from this aspect of culture, there are predominantly two phenomena: stereotyping and cultural sensitivity, that have been responsible for redefining present-day youth culture.
Stereotyping is when one assigns worth based on their own cultural values or when personal experiences limit the ability to see beyond generalizations. Today’s youth has more exposure to different cultures and sets of ideas that differ from their own. Such exposure provides opportunities for one to overcome stereotypes that have transcended generations. These opportunities have presented themselves through the internet and social media. With these tools, the youth can experience the world firsthand, virtually, without having to hear about it from someone else’s point of view or when prescribed by elders at dinner table conversations. Equipped with this global perspective, one can form their own opinions about circumstances and people.
This does not mean that the concept of stereotyping or assigning character traits has been disregarded. What it implies is that the process of forming these stereotypes has the possibility of being more thorough and potentially more accurate by way of learning, unlearning, and relearning. For example, a young individual may interact with another from culture X online and form certain opinions or observe certain characteristics about them, similar to drawing a sketch. Furthermore, they might meet another individual from the same culture X and realize that the generalization they had made when interacting with the first person does not hold true for the second. In other words, they erase and edit that sketch, and this cycle continues as long as they receive that exposure. It is observed how firsthand access to this ‘data’ paints a more accurate picture of assigned character traits compared to a more passive form of stereotyping.
The second aspect is cultural sensitivity. Due to these opportunities, one can understand or at least notice the various unjust situations or problems that people of different cultures have to face, which they may voice or document through social media. The youth can sympathize or become more sensitized towards that culture and speak out about it through a platform provided to each individual through advanced social networks. Technological advancements have changed how one communicates, socializes, and receives information compared to previous generations. Unique experiences and attributes influence the youths’ empathy because living through these events and seeing their impact changes how one can understand and take on the perspective of others.
Operating Culture refers to those systems or standards that a society chooses to guide its own thoughts and actions or the standards a person chooses to judge another by (Goodenough, 1957), somewhat like an operating system loaded on computers. As discussed above, the current process of making cultural judgments has become slightly more thorough or comprehensive. When looked at through the lens of the operating culture of the youth, it can be said that its system of standards has become more precise. That marginal increase in the accuracy of one aspect of the youths’ ‘code’ is a change that has been made to their culture.
Deciding upon one’s operating culture is an ongoing process influenced by one’s psychological and cognitive development, as well as an awareness of the breadth of choices available. One might often find oneself in a position where one can choose which part of a culture to emulate, and living in a virtually borderless world gives young people greater access to a variety of cultures to choose from. Consequently, individuals can go through a selection process to choose which parts they want to incorporate into their own culture. Therefore, every young person today is an amalgamation of different cultures, without having to travel or move around, and this is what makes their operating culture different. Similar to the ‘Salad Bowl theory’, today’s youth culture is a mixture of diverse cultures, with each one maintaining its distinct identity. As a result, young people have an operating culture that embraces diversity, providing each individual with the liberty to be themselves. They adopt a certain freedom and confidence to embrace their identity, rather than hide from it or feel ashamed of it. Being in this ‘salad bowl’ has provided individuals with a greater reservoir of ways of perceiving, believing, evaluating, and performing.
The Cultural Pool refers to the cultural possibilities of the past, present, and future (Goodenough, 1957). The Cultural Pool of the present for young people is undergoing drastic changes, particularly in relation to the imminent problems they face. Marvin Harris and Roy A. Rappaport argued that culture is an adaptive mechanism. They saw culture from a systematic approach: human beings create culture in response to a problem (Rappaport 1999). Going by this ideology, there is another reason why youth culture today is different from that of the past. Young people are dealing with various unique problems, such as climate change, artificial intelligence, and the pandemic. With such imminent problems, the way one adapts to these changes — one’s culture — will also begin to change. In order to thrive in this new environment and seize the opportunities it presents, education plays a central role. The youth are being equipped to tackle these issues and spearhead this change.
Every culture is unique, and so is today’s youth culture. It is unique because of technology, which gives young people a global perspective, platforms where passions can be displayed, and emancipation from prescriptive forms of learning that present the possibility that their hunger for knowledge can be satisfied. The arguments and evidence point to one fact: the distinct nature of young people’s circumstances and their being provide each one of them with the opportunity to be a changemaker with fewer hindrances than previous generations, bettered by the passion that drives them.
Today’s youth culture is characterized by a redefinition of assigned character traits, an evolving operating culture and a cultural pool equipped for change. With access to global perspectives through the internet and social media, young people have the opportunity to challenge stereotypes and form more accurate judgments about others. They also exhibit greater empathy and awareness of the challenges faced by different cultures, voicing their concerns and advocating for change. Moreover, the youth of today embrace diversity and freely choose elements from various cultures to incorporate into their own operating culture, creating a unique blend of identities. Additionally, young people are adapting to and tackling the imminent problems of their time, shaping their culture in response to these challenges. Ultimately, the ever-evolving nature of youth culture reflects their resilience, creativity, and capacity to shape a better future.
References
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