Psychosocial Development in Adolescence - Essay Example

 Psychosocial Development in Adolescence Adolescence is usually a transitional period that is associated with many difficulties affecting teenagers.The media tends to focus on the on the problems that seem to mar young people during the adolescence phase, forgetting that it’s a stage when they are experiencing psychological development. Adolescents are closely linked to alcohol related issues, gang violence, drug abuse, suicidal tendencies and other delinquent behaviours. These activities are as a result of their transformation from childhood to adulthood when the teenagers are trying to find their position in the society.

Psychological development in adolescents is more complicated nowadays with the emergence of various technologies that have changed the manner in which teenagers interact. Social media, which is as a result of advancement in technology, has a strong influence on the behaviour of teenagers (Hagell, 2012). This essay will focus on different aspects of psychological development in adolescents and how each aspect affects how they behave. Identity formation is a crucial psychological development in teenagers where they develop a sense of identity and understand who they are and what they want to do in life.

Teenagers usually develop career aspirations and their interest in education or sports is inclined towards a specific category. On social media such as twitter and Facebook, the teenagers will seem to interact more with people or colleagues who are in a career path that they wish to join. One will observe that the teenagers are constantly following and joining fan pages that associate with certain companies, people or organisations. This is because they are developing identity with their preferred career choices.

Teenagers will also identify with friends who they share with similar experiences or interests. Friends on social media are selected according to how a teenager identifies with them or how popular they are at school or in the community (Fülöp, 2005). Self-esteem is usually another aspect of psychological development in adolescents. Teenagers usually have a high self-esteem if they are popular among their peers. Take the example of a social media site like twitter where teenagers who have a large number of followers have a high self-esteem while those who have a few followers are even depressed.

Those with many followers tend to think that they are highly valued by others, therefore, developing more self-confidence than those with few followers who have low self-confidence because they think that they are not valued by their peers (Hagell, 2012).Gender stereotypes usually affect how the teenagers interact, the activities that they carry out and the career paths that they pursue. Girls are more likely to engage in activities that look and seem more feminine like cheerleading. On the other hand, boys seem to engage in activities that make them seem more masculine.

On social media, one will notice that the girls will upload pictures and videos where they are participating in activities like shopping while boys will be participating in sports. Those who deviate from this norm are labeled as weird and usually have few friends. Some teenagers who do not conform are sometimes bullied on social media, a trend which is becoming common and has resulted to suicide tendencies in some teenagers (Viner, 2005). The last aspect discussed on this essay is on body image.

Adolescents become aware of their body image as they closely associate it with their self-esteem. Girls are more aware of the changes taking place in their bodies than boys. White girls seem to dislike the idea of adding more weight since they perceive thin bodies as the ideal body size while black women are more comfortable with adding weight. On social media, an individual will notice that the teenagers who think that they have the ideal bodies and beauty upload many pictures and have many people complimenting on their beauty in form of likes and comments.

This usually raises their self-esteem. The teenagers, who think that they do not have ideal bodies, usually refrain from uploading their pictures because they fear that they might not get similar reactions to the teenagers who are perceived to have ideal bodies (Hagell, 2012). ReferencesFülöp, M. (2005). Growing up in Europe today: Developing identities among adolescents. Stoke-on-Trent: Trentham.Hagell, A. (2012). Changing adolescence: Social trends and mental health. Bristol, UK: Policy Press.Viner, R. (2005).

ABC of adolescence. Malden, Mass.: BMJ Books/Blackwell Pub..