“…American youth attributes much more importance to arriving at driver’s license age than at voting age,…” Do we have a milestone that is replacing the drivers licensetoday? What is it? And/or if the car is no longer the status symbol that it was, what would the status symbol betoday, particularly to teenagers?
Homework from Andrew McLuhan’s Understanding Media intensive, quote from UM
The milestone replacing driving and voting age is posting/publishing on the web without your parents’ knowledge or consent. Or possibly some other internet-activity that they wouldn’t know about…
Where as in previous generations the goal was to get somewhere and become some archetype, the younger folk now want to become themselves and go where they belong, are welcomed, celebrated.
Supportive parents still have safeguards. And one of those is limiting/preventing/monitoring how their child uses devices. Even an adolecesent or teen that’s being monitored in their usage knows more than their parent about how to use the device, and how to deceive.
For the young person since the 2000s the web has been another parent, shaping their mannerisms and understandings of the world. For younger generations even more so. American teens say the want to be Youtube stars when they grow up. So for them the status symbol is either a verified check or a million views.