Teen Spirit

How Adolescence Transformed the Adult World

By: Paul Howe

Narrated by: Tim Paige

Teen Spirit offers a novel and provocative perspective on how we came to be living in an age of political immaturity and social turmoil. Award-winning author Paul Howe argues it's because a teenage mentality has slowly gripped the adult world.

Howe contends that many features of how we live today - some regrettable, others beneficial - can be traced to the emergence of a more defined adolescent stage of life in the early 20th century, when young people started spending their formative, developmental years with peers, particularly in formal school settings. He shows how adolescent qualities have slowly seeped upward, where they have gradually reshaped the norms and habits of adulthood. The effects over the long haul, Howe contends, have been profound, in both the private realm and in the public arena of political, economic, and social interaction. Our teenage traits remain part of us as we move into adulthood. We now need instruction manuals for adulting!

Teen Spirit challenges our assumptions about the boundaries between adolescence and adulthood. Yet despite a cultural system that seems to be built on the ethos of Generation Me, it's not all bad. In fact, there is an equally impressive rise in creativity, diversity, and tolerance within society: all traits stemming from core components of the adolescent character.

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