Work, Leisure, & Mass Media
Culture and adolescence relate closely because teens are trying to determine
whether to accept their cultural heritage or detach from all values related to
their parents
Culture – behaviors, beliefs, & ideals of a group of people passed on
from one generation to the next.
 It is said that you can tell what a person’s values are from looking at
his checkbook & calendar- how do we spend our time & money?
 Teens have a lot of free time & some money for their own use- what
do they do with it?
 When students carried a pager & wrote down what they were doing all
day, they listed socializing, watching TV, playing sports, productive
activities, like school, & just maintenance activities like exercise,
grooming
Allocation of time is similar for middle class & urban poor teens
Busier teens are better adjusted, higher achieving
 Teens do stick with one particular activity for the most part: ¼ have
multiple commitments; 1/10 had none
How do American teens differ from others?
 Asians spend more time on homework (5 hrs/day vs. 5 hrs/ week US)
 Europeans & Asians spend 3x as much time reading for pleasure
 US teens spend more time in sports, socializing, caring for
appearance, working after school
Adolescents and Work
 80% of teens will work before graduating HS
 In 1940, only 5%M & 2%F worked during school
 Rapid expansion after WWII opened up many part time jobs; baby
boomers were available in the 70s, so many began
working- not for necessity but for spending money
 Today teens average 15- 20 hrs/wk working
In other countries
 In non-industrialized countries, teens begin working
before adolescence- farming, hunting, weaving- in a mentoring
manner
 They leave school early to help the family
 Japan, Taiwan, fewer teens work (1/4 work)
 European youth are more likely to work in school or government
apprenticeships to prepare them for full time work
 There are negatives for teens working so early
Where do teens work today?
 Common jobs
 Retail and service; babysitting; yard work; agricultural;
restaurants
 Work environment
 Mostly interact with peers, even supervisors are young; don’t
interact after work
 Jobs don’t allow much autonomy; poor instruction; stressful,
high time pressure
 Some jobs allow real world training for future jobs
 Most teens felt jobs were positive, as they earned money &
had responsibility
Impact of work on development
 Development of responsibility
 Develop cynical attitudes re: work & endorse unethical
business practices
 This mostly depends on the nature of the job- better jobs
develop more positive attitudes
 Those who work more hours are more unsatisfied by life- work
is monotonous, strictly supervised
 Many do say they learned more responsible habits, money
management- but that often shows up as self indulgent
materialism- premature affluence
 This produces an unrealistic view of
what they are entitled to, financially,
once they have to pay all their own bills
Impact of work on school
 Longer hours, less school engagement & success
 Summer work doesn’t affect interest in this way
 They are in fewer school activities, enjoy school less, spend less time
on homework, are absent more, make worse grades, and work may
relate to dropping out
 They cope by taking easier classes, cheating, cutting
homework, copying from others,
 When many students in a school work, teachers also cut them
slack which results in less rigorous education
Impact of work on problem behavior
Working long hours is related to increases in aggression, school
misbehavior, early sexual behavior, minor delinquency, petty theft,
joyriding, carrying a weapon
Work correlates with higher smoking, drinking, & drug use
Working produces more stress, more money to spend on drugs, less
opportunity for family time
School seems less important when a teen is working long hours
Youth Unemployment
 14% of youth are neither in school nor working
 4% are unemployed & seeking work, most are dropouts (1/2 the
unemployed in this group are dropouts)
 Minority youth are more likely to be unemployed (more do drop out)
 Unemployment is associated with higher rates of crime, drug abuse,
violence
How can schools help?
 Open more opportunities for community service
 Service learning- volunteer work that connects a teen to
institutions & enhances self-esteem, self-efficacy, deters
antisocial behavior
 Improve counseling & career services
 Community services could also aid in placement for summer jobs,
volunteer activities
 Apprentice programs gradually introduce teens to progressively
more challenging jobs
 Many programs to aid at risk teens have been tried, but are
unsuccessful so far. More attention may need to be paid to keeping
them in school & helping them be successful there.
Leisure activities
 Boredom is more of a problem than we think- 1/3 of middle class
students report chronic boredom (1/10 of poor students)
 Not a problem during leisure time, though
 Teens choose leisure activities- autonomy helps
 Socializing, sports, games, TV, listening/playing music,
Internet surging, video games,
shopping, hanging out
 Structured & voluntary activities have most benefits:
 Sports, hobbies, art, clubs
Experience Sampling Method- pagers to record mood
 When signaled, teens fill out a questionnaire or record info on PDA
re: who they are with, what they are doing, & how they feel
 Mood is more positive with friends; least positive when alone;
improves with family with age
Structured leisure activities relate to most positive concentration &
motivation
Leisure activities- average teen spends 5 hours/week
 2/3 of US students are in some extracurricular
 Most popular activity is athletics- ½ participate
 Music- 1/5 are in band, chorus, glee club
 Academic/occupational- 1/5 are in science clubs, language clubs,
career clubs
 More participation in small towns/ small schools/ middle class/ better
students/ parents are also involved in community/ school activities
Does it matter?
 Participants have higher self-esteem, improved school performance,
less likely to drop out, become delinquent, more positive well-being &
higher social status
 Team sports is related to higher alcohol use, especially for boys in
football; wrestling/ male-dominated sports
 Extracurricular participation relates to more cross-racial
friendships, greater participation in college, community involvement
later, more physically active later in life
 May be due to positive contact with coaches, teachers who reinforce
values of school/ community, serve as positive role models, build
connection to school
 Downside of athletics is injury- 25% are injured
Sex roles & extracurricular activities: sports emphasize sex stereotypes
 Sports- chief path to popularity/ status for boys
 Boys’ sports emphasize achievement, toughness, dominance,
competition
 Girls’ sports- not as connected to status; aggression not emphasized as
much; relates to science achievement for girls
 Cheerleading more connected to status for girls; bubbliness;
appearance more emphasized
Unstructured leisure time
 Routine activity theory- lack of structure, socializing with peers
without supervision relates to problem behaviors- delinquency, drug
use, early sexual behavior
 After school is highest risk- latchkey kids may become more
responsible, but also more isolated, depressed, more sexually active,
more likely to use drugs than those who are supervised after
school
Are all latchkey kids at risk?
 Being at home, having parents check in by phone, having authoritative
parents reduce risks
 Hanging out with friends, having friends who use drugs, being more
susceptible to peer pressure makes the lack of supervision more
dangerous
 Living in a neighborhood with low collective efficacy, little other
adult supervision also puts kids at risk
Positive youth development
 It’s not enough to keep kids out of trouble- they need to develop
strengths:
Mass Media
 Media saturates teens’ world
 99% have TVs; 98% have CD/DVD players; 83% have video game
system; 86% have computers; 75% have Internet- and SES doesn’t
matter much
 Parental monitoring is a challenge (61% parents say they monitor
teens’ use of the Internet; 38% teens say parents monitor!)
Total media exposure is very high- 6 hrs/day
 Most of the time is watching TV (3 hrs), then music (2 hrs)
 Reading is less than 1 hr/day
 Time spent with TV/ video games is inversely correlated to time spent
in physical activity- one cause of obesity
 With age, TV declines, music increases (mostly alone)
 Favorite shows: comedies, movies, reality shows, variety
shows, dramas, sports (boys watch sports 4x more than girls)
 Favorite music: rap/hip-hop, alt rock, hard rock, country
 Websites: social networking, blogs (risk is unwanted sexual
solicitation- 13% of teens get one each year), entertainment
sites, chat rooms
How much impact does media have on teen behavior?
 There is a correlation between heavy media use & trouble- boredom,
sadness, acting out, but direction of relationship is unknown
 Cultivation theory- media shapes teens motives & beliefs about the
world
 Uses & gratifications approach- teens choose the media they use in
concert with their needs
 Media practice model- teens choose the media they like & interpret
it to shape its impact
Impact of exposure to sex, violence & drugs
 Sex- 70% of popular shows have sexual content (this has declined
with popularity of reality shows)
 Sexual imagery is more graphic on daytime TV, but many
messages depict women as objects, sex defining masculinity,
sex as competition, as fun, without consequences
 Violence- 60% of TV contains violence
 Those who play more violent games get into more fights than
others. But teen violence has declined since 1990s & yet video
games have been sold at high rates
 Drugs- alcohol, tobacco, illicit drugs are shown in 70% of primetime
dramas, 38/40 top movies, ½ music videos; 10% of ads are for
beer/wine
Exposure to TV violence is linked to:
 Aggressive behavior
 Heightened tolerance of violence
 Desensitization to the effects of violence
 African-American girls exposed
to more rap videos
were more
likely to hit a teacher & be
arrested, have multiple sex
partners, contract a
STD, use
drugs/alcohol
Media portrayals are skewed
 Those who watch many music videos hold tolerant attitudes toward
sex-stereotyped behavior, sexual harassment
 Those who watch daytime soaps believe extramarital affairs, divorces,
out of wedlock babies are more common than they are
 Images on TV created unrealistic expectations re: sexual satisfaction
 Family depiction is inaccurate- more upper class, more active father
participation, more nontraditional families shown
 Glamorous depiction of jobs, over representing the most prestigious
jobs
Ads misrepresent normal bodies
 Girls develop skewed ideas of what is normal
 Message of girls’ magazines is that attractive means popularity with
males
 Very little about ethics, education, self-improvement
 Girls in fiction are shown being rescued by others, occupations
are sex-stereotyped
 Girls who read more fashion magazines are least satisfied with their
bodies
The teen consumer
 Teens are targeted by businesses as they have more discretionary
income (3/4 go to a mall each week)
 Girls spend on clothes, food, cosmetics
 Boys spend for food, clothes, save for cars, electronics
 Both spend on alcohol/ smokes ($22B/year on alcohol by
underage drinkers!)
 Viral marketing- promoting by encouraging people to pass it on to
others (even used by political operatives)
Attitudes toward use of leisure time differ for teens & adults
 Parents tend to value structured activities over hanging out time, even
that time contributes to well-being, personal development
 Teens use solitude & time with friends to work out who they are &
what they value, to learn to get along with other people
 Mass media is a reflection of teen interests, as much as an influencer
of those interests (which is why so many adults quit watching popular
TV!)