In her discussion of american youth, stephanie coontz uses a concept she calls "rolelessness" to analyze current patterns: what is rolelessness? what effect does it have on teenagers? would you consider this a personal trouble or public issue?

Recent sociology and history as well, have taken on the job of trying to explain several circumstances that have arisen in current days regarding teenage behavior, and society at large.

In 1997, Stephanie Coontz, an American historian and also an author dedicated to teaching about history and family studies, published a really interesting article called: "How History and Sociology can Help Today´s Families". In this article, it is Coontz herself who uses the term "rolelessness" to make reference to how teenagers are perceived by society today. Basically she says that although there have been a lot of misconceptions created around teenagers, and their behavior, in recent years due to statistics that have been blown out of proportion, there is one truth in them; teenagers, due to the way that society, technology, and roles and tasks, have changed, today´s teenagers do not have a socially meaningful role to play, except to study and, according to adults, wait to grow up. This rolelessness is explained by Coontz as adolescents no longer playing a meaningful role in the activities that once were theirs to have: working either at home or outside of it, fulfilling a role in the home as caretakers of younger children, or any other such tasks.

The effect that this rolessness has had on teenagers has been tremendous as now they have been limited from attempting tasks and roles that would help them grow and mature into much integrally formed adults, to take on activities that rather harm them. Since they are only expected to study and do well in studies, they have more than amply time today, with technology, to get into situations that may harm them.

Because today we are seeing that this problem is not just of a few teenagers in an isolated part of the world, but rather a worldwide problem, and whatever anyone says, statistics show that there is a clear problem with adolescents today, I believe that this issue, re-educating parents and society at large about teenagers and how to wisely handle their time of development, should be taken as a public issue, more than a simple personal matter.

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