Dear Editor,
I had hoped to read yet another enlightening article on social issues in the November issue of Sinorama.. Thus, it is with great disappointment that I must protest at Jenny Hu's article, "Youngian Psychology--Taipei's New New Youth on Life." I found the article portrayed adolescents as incompetent, mindless and abnormal. I took particular offence at Dr.S.C. Wu's comments. I thought her "scholarly" research which classified a segment of youth into "cold, materialistic and trend-following" categories to be negative, condescending and bigoted. Such research only helps to further alienate young people. As a second generation Taiwanese who has grown up in Australia, and as a psychologist, I would like to share with you some of my observations about the Taiwanese "New New Youth."
Many of the "strange" behaviors and attitudes described in the article are considered to be a normal part of adolescence in Westernized nations. It has been a well-known fact in Western psychology that adolescence is a time when individuals will become more extreme in their beliefs and more gregarious. Perhaps best known is the work of European psychologist Erik Erikson. He believed that adolescents typically tried on several different social identities until they found the one that best fitted them. I cannot believe that such an influential psychologist in the area of adolescent behavior was ignored in your article.
Perhaps research should focus more on how significant the problem really is, what factors are contributing to it and what sorts of things can be done about it. For example, although most teenagers appear to be more knowledgeable about sex these days, this begs the question of whether that actually leads to higher rates of sex between adolescents and perhaps more importantly, to higher rates of sexually transmitted diseases, teenage pregnancies and abortions.
With regard to the increasing level of violence seen in young people, I believe that adolescents typically act violently for a reason. In my experience as a clinical psychologist, society can give mixed messages to its children. This can leave adolescents, who are already grappling with life as a teenager, with a bitter taste of life as an adult. And sometimes, in their cynicism, the adolescent chooses to reject society--through force. Such social factors appear to have been missed by Dr. Wu and relegated to the final paragraph by the reporter.
Yes, teenagers can behave in a way that seems completely foreign to us; as if they were not even our own children. In the process, they can hurt themselves or others, sometimes with very tragic results. I do not have the answers. But I firmly believe an enlightened attitude is an important first step.
Yours sincerely,
Andrew Chia, Australia
BSc Melbourne, GradDipA (AppPsych)
Monash
Editor's Note: I would first like to express my thanks to Mr. Chia for his helpful examination of adolescent behavior from the psychological perspective, in response to our feature on "Taipei's New New Youth."
In the course of preparing these articles, we attempted to analyze the subject from the viewpoint of psychology, but discovered that this angle was not entirely reliable, because adolescent psychology has been the same the world over throughout the ages, so that no clear distinction can be made between "new youth" and "traditional youth." Of course it can not be denied that adolescents' psychological desire for acceptance among their peers serves to fuel the "new youth" phenomenon. Nevertheless, the "phenomenon of new youth" should not be directly equated with adolescent behavior as a whole.
In light of this, we solicited the informed commentary of sociology professor Dr.Doris S.C. Wu. We asked her to examine the thinking, behavior and extracurricular activities of the "New New Youth." which have been aggressively targeted by advertisers and the media, from the perspective of a modern social phenomenon, and to root out the social evolution and family environments behind this trend. As Professor Wu herself especially pointed out, "In fact youth culture is an adjunct of the mainstream culture."
We hope that through this kind of report every individual or group, whether they recognize themselves to be members of some category or have been categorized by others, will be able to gain mutual understanding and concern. Our articles may be appraised quite differently by different people, and we welcome all our readers to share their opinions and perspectives.
Our apologies: Due to lack of space, we have published this letter in a slightly abridged form.