Formation of Relationships and Hierarchies in Adolescent Groups - Essay Example

Full Dis Community Analysis of Teenagers in 16th Street, Downtown Denver Language is an essential part of everyday life expressed either verbally or in non-verbal forms like facial expressions, body language and posture. An individual can never let others understand what he wants them to know without communication, and peace and order would be quite difficult to maintain if there was lack of this important element of human living. In the study of the teenagers in 16th street in Downtown, Denver, this small group has shown significantly important matters that contribute to the formation of relationships, hierarchy, exclusion and stereotyping. Whatever various things have been observed, it is generally concluded that communication is still a most vital part of a community in expressing the members’ thoughts and ideas as well as what they would want to learn from the society. Communication among the subjects of this paper is not very different from what is generally observed but is expressed through the most recent means brought about by technology like twitter, facebook and text messaging in addition to speaking and non-verbal methods of communicating. Having an account in the aforementioned social networking sites is now common not only to teenagers but to children and adults as well but this study limits itself among the teenagers alone. Updates, friendly chats, class discussions and other important matters are now easily accessed with the wide availability of the internet to every teenager in 16th street, Downtown so that most of them are updated with the latest local news and other interesting matters there could be discussed over the internet. The growing number of internet users now places teenagers without facebook or twitter accounts among the lower class who are not able to afford personal computers or internet connections or are rather poor enough not to be able to go to school and become aware of such high technology developments. Other thoughts prevalent among teenagers about those who have no such accounts are considered to be old people who are not keen enough to learn how to manipulate the computer. In the exchange of ideas whether through face to face communication or through the internet and with the abundance of sites teenagers could visit but are not allowed by their parents, slang languages have been developed among the teenagers for them to hide things they do not like their parents to know. For instance, pornographic sites or images are referred to as ‘pron’ instead of the widely known term ‘porn’. This is to trick parents that what they are talking about or referring to are not offensive and also to let them stay away from them and their friends when they are discussing such matters. When they mention skittles, they are not talking about the candy bar rather the topic is about a type of drug commonly available to teenagers. No parent would ever suspect anything fearful with this attempt of the young people to hide their discussions from their parents so that even if they are hearing them say these things, the parents are just left clueless. Another common term used among teenagers in 16th street is the word ‘trannie’ or ‘tranzie’ which refers to trans-genders and come quite derogatory to those they refer to because they are usually singled out from their groups. Some slang terms are not just used to hide things from parents but from fellow teenagers as well in an attempt not to hurt their feelings like the formerly mentioned example which could be referred to a friend who is trans-sexual, accepted in a group yet is not far from being talked about. On the other groups’ point of view however, the words mentioned earlier place those who use them as rude or even members of some gang. Although the words usually hide the real topics from the untrained ears of older groups like parents, such talks also come with non-verbal communication that would express arrogance, haughtiness and some air of dislike to them so that they begin the suspicions and eventually the guarding of their children. This then brings a wall between parents and teenagers wherein when the latter who join their fellow teenagers who speak and act as mentioned will be categorized as gang members or like terms. Stereotyping now occurs because although the teenagers who act and talk as such are not really as bad as gang members but just want to ‘belong’ to a group, they still are misunderstood because of the general perception of people. Non-verbal communications are not at all differently expressed among teenagers in 16th street. For instance, a young man who likes a girl usually gives a wide smile and stares at her, following her as much as he could. To the girl whose feeling is mutual, she would usually smile back and send invitations through non-verbal communication like walking in front of the guy as often as she can, simply getting near the man or finding ways for the man to be able to touch her. A pout means dislike, a smile is to acceptance, laughing means enjoyment, a hazy stare means the person is in love and a wide-eyed stare says the person hates someone. However, problems usually occur when non-verbal information is misinterpreted and could be embarrassing so that careful attention should be given to it. One teenager in the street showed real interest in a young lady who seemed to like everybody, being a naturally kind person. Thinking that the lady’s acceptance of his invitations for a snack in the canteen, her sweet smiles and gentle words were all indications that the girl liked him also, the young man made advances faster than he should have. One time, he found the courage to ask the girl out for a date in a private place and was trying to give an account of what they will be doing, just the two of them. He was surprised when the young lady slapped him and turned away from him, not taking notice of him from that time on. After the incident, he found out that the girl was simply kind and friendly to everyone because she was raised in a religious family who believed that treating all people kindly and being a friend to everyone regardless of age, race and gender is every human being’s responsibility. Misinterpretations though, are not limited to non-verbal communication but are also present in verbal communication. With more and more words being created by the teenagers, parents and older people are more likely to be lost in conversations with them, making no sense from what is being said. When parents are not articulate enough to dig in to what the child is talking about, misunderstandings occur and could be disastrous. This then poses a great challenge to the parents as they have to learn and understand the language of the young people especially when they are so used to the languages used among their friends that they seem to be unable to connect with their parents because of differences in meaning of words. As generations are finding gaps to be greater when it comes to communication, there is now a great deal of learning to be acquired by both parties especially with the growing number of communication methods. In defining themselves, teenagers must be careful where and when they use their own languages and still have to take a careful consideration with the knowledge they acquire should they want to be in a good light and not be associated with undesirable groups. Read More