Talk:Adolescence/Archive 6

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Awkward wording

This excerpt "...females of high school age and boys who identify themselves as gay.", among others, feels very awkward and unequal. It can say boys, but it finds saying girls as inappropriate, and resorts to saying females of high school age, which leaves me wondering why it doesn't say males of high school age instead. It also looks at the orientation of the boys in question in a skeptical and questioning tone, enough to spark heated debates about homosexuality that are the last of our needs. It needs to be fixed. 95.14.155.213 (talk) 12:24, 13 September 2012 (UTC)

Where is that line located in the article, IP? I gave the article a quick look-over and didn't see it; I'll have to look more closely later. I'm not quite sure that I understand your objection to it, however, aside from it using "females" instead of "girls" when it uses "boys" instead of "males." If the source or sources point out that the boys are gay, so should we. Otherwise, we'd be speaking of boys in general. But what wording do you propose to take the place of the current wording? Flyer22 (talk) 01:07, 14 September 2012 (UTC)

"Every year, approximately 13% of adolescents are sexually solicited online, and about 4% of the solicitations are also followed with solicitation for contact not through a computer medium.[213][214] Most of the adolescents at risk for solicitation are females of high school age and boys who identify themselves as gay."

Perhaps the objection is a feminist one i.e. the sexes should be referenced on equal terms. i.e. women shouldn't be called "girls" while men are "guys" etc. I saw an objecion somewhere to the use of "female", seeing it as similar to referring livestock. Maybe the objection is along those lines. Could you say "girls of high school age? MathewTownsend (talk) 01:06, 15 September 2012 (UTC)

I have no problem with using "girls," Matthew, and will change it now. Thanks for giving me an idea of where this material is in the article. Flyer22 (talk) 01:12, 16 September 2012 (UTC)

"Unlike males, therefore, females usually appear physically mature before they are capable of becoming pregnant". It's clear what was meant here, but since males will never be capable of becoming pregnant, "unlike males" makes no sense at all. Perhaps this could be fixed by changing "capable of becoming pregnant" into "sexually mature"?92.111.250.34 (talk) 17:08, 24 June 2015 (UTC)

Editing initiative

An advanced seminar in adolescent development is undertaking a major editing of this article. The last major editing of this piece was done under my supervision last Spring. We will continue that work and expand on the piece here to bring up the quality and add additional information. One major focus will be to expand the focus outside the US. We should finish this in late October 2012. Nancydarling (talk) 13:21, 14 September 2012 (UTC)

Welcome back, Nancy. Will you all be reformatting most of the article? Or is this more about adding more on to it? Either way, I need to delete some of the present subheadings, considering that the article looks long enough as it is. I'm sure that you remember that excessive subheadings were one of my few complaints about your class editing the article the previous round. Also, do you plan to have a class edit this article every few months or a year later? I ask because I want to know if I should expect this article not to be stable for longer than those times. Also, it would be ideal if you could point your class to the Welcome template -- specifically its links -- that are on your talk page so that they have a better idea of how to edit Wikipedia. That is, if you haven't already. But just in case you don't/haven't, and because they might need a reminder, I'll add Welcome templates to their talk pages when I see them. And I'll of course help out with formatting. Flyer22 (talk) 23:51, 14 September 2012 (UTC)

By the way, do you know if Dblanchard1234 is one of your students? He apparently made WP:Test edits.[1][2] Acat2169 and Scarlett811, both new users, might be yours as well. Flyer22 (talk) 23:59, 14 September 2012 (UTC)

Hi Flyer22. I think this article will have less and less editing to be done as it improves. This still has a B rating and we want to bring it up to top quality. It still has a ways to go. After next week, we will not work on it systematically until at least next year. We have also been working on the related article on Emerging Adulthood. All the students should have gone through the welcome materials and editing training. Nancydarling (talk) 18:56, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

Thank you for the response, Nancydarling. There have been heading formatting issues again, mostly capitalizing issues -- your class capitalizing each word in a heading, which is against WP:Manual of Style except for when it is the official formatting for a name of something -- but I can tell that they have had some training on Wikipedia formatting...and it's good to know that I don't have to tag their talk pages with the Welcome template. Flyer22 (talk) 07:21, 5 October 2012 (UTC)

And as for elevating this article from its B-level status, see WP:GA and WP:FA if you haven't already. Flyer22 (talk) 17:36, 5 October 2012 (UTC)

Hi. I just wanted to make a couple of suggestions on the content of the article. Me and my girlfriend had son when she was 15 and I was 17. This was during 1972 in San Francisco Bay Area, California. My girlfriend and I had no intent of having a child as far as I can remember. We'd both dropped acid we are pretty sure that night he was conceived. Maybe she did intend. Anyway, she ended up with horrible stretch marks on her abdomen because she was not fully developed at 15. They remain to this day I am sure though we are apart since 1975 or so. I blame myself for this. Maybe I should only get half, whatever. The point is, on the diagram under the statements in this article where it mentions the ages where puberty is complete, it pretty much tends to add a couple of years so that if you were going by the colored diagram, it does indicate a more realistic age level for both males and females. i.e. for females, 16 or 17-19, for males 18-20 would be kinder to the youngsters, as long as this article is theoretically to be available to the entire world of reading online individuals, in my way of thinking, especially the way things in the sexual development department seem to be proceeding, to change this would be very good. My vote anyway. I thank you for taking that into consideration if there is any way to change it at this late date and if you agree it is wiser. Also, I didn't completely read the whole article, but although it is no doubt full of facts which cannot be challenged really, there is also a lot of what I can only refer to as convenient assumptive sorts of statements, not of fact perhaps. To be most informative and helpful for all concerned, I urge a going over of the entire article and at every statement along the way, be asking yourself "is this an actual fact and true" or is this just some sort of thing to make it seem more informed but it is really almost just padding? There is further, not that I saw anyway, not a mention of the way that illegal drug use and legal drug abuse interferes with development and prolongs adolescence in some ways while shortening it in other ways, which is somewhat unhealthy perhaps and therefore a lackluster adolescent method if you were in charge of raising some kids, you'd rather probably be sober more often than not and maintain a general rule of totally sufficient attention to the child rearing until kids are at least 18 if possible. I know this won't correct everything, but if any of what I've said means anything, I'd sure appreciate if articles could be found that support my suggestions if it would make more kids able to grow up happy and healthy instead of dysfunctional like me and others in my life, some of which have been ejected or so it seems (RIP). It is better to just admit WE DON'T KNOW, if we really do not know. Thanks for the opportunity to input. Sorry it is so long. Cognitive Impairment. Maybe due to you know what. Missed a bunch of what was supposed to happen maybe. Just one more idea. Dr. Phil is pretty good on this general sort of thing. I'd rather see an article of 50% the length with only facts. Don't mean to be too blunt.IraChesterfield (talk) 05:25, 18 July 2013 (UTC)

Hello, IraChesterfield. I'm not sure what to state with regard to your post, but I'll begin by stating that Wikipedia goes by the WP:Verifiability policy when it comes to sourcing. That, and some sourcing guidelines. I'll also go ahead and note to you that ages 16 or 17-19 for females and ages 18-20 for males are not more realistic ages for when puberty is complete. The article is more accurate by listing ages 15–17 for girls and 16–17 for boys. For example, see the Tanner scale. You have to keep in mind that children, especially girls, start puberty a lot or somewhat earlier these days than they did centuries or decades ago. A 16-year-old boy or girl might not look as physically mature as someone who is age 20, but that is usually due to a lack of physical maturity apart from puberty. For example, the text currently mentions that "boys accelerate more slowly but continue to grow for about 6 years after the first visible pubertal changes," which probably explains why some men don't get facial hair until their late teens or early 20s. It can be confusing about how that may be separate from puberty in some cases. Flyer22 (talk) 06:27, 18 July 2013 (UTC)

Sexual identity

This text is in the article:
"In terms of sexual identity, while all sexual orientations found in adults are also represented among adolescents, statistically the suicide rate amongst LGBT adolescents is up to four times higher than that of their heterosexual peers."
This sentence is more about risk factors associated with one specific sexual identity than about sexual identity in adolescents. There must be so much more that can be said about sexual identity in adolescents. For instance, it is not at all uncommon for adolescents to be much more unsure about sexual identity compared to adults, and I wonder if there is more experimenting (or do adolescents try more to fit into a common pattern and is it young adults who experiment most??). Anyway, as you see, much more can be said about sexual identity during adolescence and a text about this would be greatly appreciated. Thank you! Lova Falk talk 19:05, 5 October 2012 (UTC)

Since we already seem to have a section on sexuality, I edited the title of the section to LGBT sexual identity to better reflect the content, and also expanded it to add more statistics. Kporterf (talk) 22:15, 11 October 2012 (UTC)

Good job! Lova Falk talk 09:23, 13 October 2012 (UTC)

Update: That heading was changed by an editor (no doubt from the same class) with this addition, and then I slightly altered it and moved the section up higher for the reasons stated in this edit summary. Flyer22 (talk) 11:51, 21 October 2012 (UTC)

Images

I started this discussion to note that the images that Tobby72 added on October 16, 2012 were removed last year per the Further changes after merge discussion. But I'm okay with these images having been added back. If others aren't, this section allows you state your objection(s) to any image of those images or others...their image captions...or your preference for other images. Flyer22 (talk) 00:05, 20 October 2012 (UTC)

FeatherPluma just started helping out with this article, and I appreciate such help. It's definitely needed at this article. In addition to having made clean-up edits, FeatherPluma removed File:AdolescentCouplesAtTheFair4433.JPG, with the following edit summary: "rmv b/c 1. image does not have a tight conceptual tethering to adjacent text 2. does not illustrate or amplify it 3. is annotated with an unreferenced claim (may be true but does not appear to be verifiable." But I feel that having an image of a teenage romantic couple is especially relevant in a section about adolescent/teenage romance, and thus does amplify the text. It's a more relevant image than the caption-less image currently in the Self-esteem section or the one of teenage girls from South Africa in the Peers section. Do readers need to see the couples image to understand the text? No. But whether or not to include an image being based on whether or not it significantly enhances a reader's understanding of the text is based on WP:NONFREE (which cites policy and guidelines, but I'm especially speaking of the Contextual significance part), and doesn't apply as much to free images. Lastly, the image caption that was used for the image is verifiable; it's on the image's description page. What we don't know is if the couples are romantic couples or just friends that are paired up, but the implication is definitely that they are romantic couples. Flyer22 (talk) 23:20, 8 December 2012 (UTC)

Hi, Flyer22. Nice to meet you. Thank you for initiating a discussion in respect of the(se) image(s).

• In regards to my point #3, I judge that we don't really know very much for certain about these four people. The conclusion that someone is coupled with someone else seems to be based exclusively on the image title. Keeping things brief, I am uncomfortable for several reasons with the idea that "somebody's" label of a Flickr-sourced image meets guidelines for reliable source. WP:SELFPUBLISH is one of several troubling aspects.
• As to my point #1, the image "illustrates" a section entitled Romance and sexual activity, that moreover is "subtitled" with a connexion to the main page on Adolescent sexuality. I would stipulate to your "we don't know is if the couples are romantic couples or just friends" but I am uncertain other than from the WP:SPS that they are "paired up". Accordingly IMO reaching the "implication" that they are necessarily romantic or sexually active couples may verge on WP:SYNTH, and I continue to wonder if the image has the requisite "tight conceptual tethering" to the section theme.
• As to my point #2, an image of four people such as can be seen in everyday life at a cinema or college IMO does not amplify the text or convey something that was not already perfectly clear from the text.
• I agree without reservation with your concerns about the South Africa group of three and the image in the self-esteem section. These two images raised my eyebrows significantly and were under consideration for proposed redaction (although you will forgive me for pointing out that generally Wikipedia "argues the case by the specifics" rather than the relative merits, which can be exceptionally subjective.)
• All that said, "it sure is a pretty picture at an American West fair" (I hope that doesn't sound too trite), and I really don't have any big issue with whatever is decided, so add it back if you judge it differently. FeatherPluma (talk) 01:56, 9 December 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for taking the time to discuss this, FeatherPluma. On to your comments: I don't see how the fact that "we don't really know very much for certain about these four people" has any bearing on whether or not to include the image, other than the fact that I stated that "What we don't know is if the couples are romantic couples or just friends that are paired up." But we don't really know very much for certain about a lot of the people we see in our images on Wikipedia, and we do defer to image titles and the image description pages of free images (and non-free images) to verify the image's authenticity. Flickr-sourced images are very much allowed on Wikipedia. Where did you get the impression that they are not allowed? From the WP:Reliable sources guideline? Image sourcing has different standards than article sourcing.

As for your first point: I understand, but that has to do with personal opinion. There are no restrictions against using these images. I hadn't thought about the fact that the couples may not be romantic couples before your removal of the image, so thanks for making me think on that. But it doesn't seem that the photographer/uploader -- Kenneth Freeman -- would call them "couples" if he hadn't meant "romantic couples." The term "couple" is often used to indicate "romantic couple." And if these four individuals were just friends, why wouldn't he just state so? Unless he doesn't know either, perhaps?

As for your second point: That goes back to my comment about free images vs. non-free images. We often include free images in articles even when they don't significantly enhance the reader's understanding of the topic. That's the good thing about free images; we can use as many of them that we think will enhance the text even a bit...as long as they are not a detriment to the article (such as too many images, redundant images, etc.). All sorts of educational books, including encyclopedias, include pictures that readers don't need to see to better understand the text. The whole "only if its presence would significantly increase readers' understanding of the topic, and its omission would be detrimental to that understanding" applies to non-free images, not free images.

About the images that we agree don't help at all: I know that as many free images as one wants to use can be used in an article as long as they are relevant and are not a detriment to the article, but I feel that they should enhance the text at least a bit. So thanks for taking the initiative and having removed one of those so far.

Yes, the American West fair image is a nice image. Since I have your go-head to restore it, I haven't decided yet if I'm going to restore it. Flyer22 (talk) 23:36, 10 December 2012 (UTC)

Very good. Will defer to your ultimate decision. I think you already have the points that a) there may arise "from some unspecified source" (so-to-speak) a political concern regarding the labeling of living people, particularly in conjunction with this adjacent text, which somebody (maybe one of the people in the picture or their representative) may object to, and that b) this is not exclusively a technical Wikipedia consideration, but a matter of careful balancing and respect of living individuals who are apt to deem for themselves whether a mislabel, even if in good faith, was applied "without due care." Anyway, I suppose you could hold to the notion that the image is already posted publically in Flikr, and further you could hold to the notion that all the potential for error / offense therefore sits there, rather than with this corpus. (Except we have the textual adjacency aspect... might bark or bite?) So again, your call, and I appreciate discussing it so thoroughly to a completion as we've done.

I think the South Africa image could go? I'll come back sometime next week if possible. FeatherPluma (talk) 16:49, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

LOL, of course that image can go. I agreed above, even though not directly. Sorry for the late reply; I was dealing with my recent block case. Flyer22 (talk) 18:36, 20 December 2012 (UTC)

Hi Flyer22 . Sorry to keep tagging you but since you have interacted with myself and my classmates the most regarding our class project I am hoping to get your input again. Our classmates have been reviewing our edits as per the class project and have brought up the addition of images. This was something we had discussed but discarded earlier on in our project but I feel I must give the idea attention given their comments as we now move into the final phase of our project, editing our edits and making final edits. The suggestion was for images regarding the channels of communication under the peers subsection. I was thinking possible the following picture; [3] as they appear to be adolescents on iPads/cell phones. I am really unsure though about adding images and whether this is an appropriate image. Any thoughts? Thank you again for all your help! kr13al 22:14, 13 November 2014 (UTC)

Hello again, Kr13al. Your pinging me via WP:Echo has not been working, perhaps because your signature currently does not have a link for your username. Also keep in mind that pinging via WP:Echo only works with a signature; so if you add the username link in after you've signed your post, the ping won't work; you will need to resign the post for the ping to work. As for your suggested ipad/cell phones image, using that in the way you suggested would be fine. Flyer22 (talk) 22:28, 13 November 2014 (UTC)

Also, since this article is on my WP:Watchlist, there is no need to ping me to its talk page. Flyer22 (talk) 22:29, 13 November 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for letting me know, I will stop pinging you. Not too sure why my signature never works as I use the four tildes as instructed, I have emailed my prof about it and she is looking into it. I will let my other group members know about the image and hopefully add it shortly. Thanks again! kr13al 22:33, 13 November 2014 (UTC)

Body image section

I've started this section to work out a current content dispute. I disagreed with this edit that an IP made, for the reasons stated in this edit summary -- that "instead of removing the information, tweak it with respect to the existing source and yours. We don't need to be ambiguous about what it is the sources state/the researchers are saying." The IP is an editor I've discussed matters with on this talk page before (Avalongod). He added back the ambiguous wording, and I still disagree with it. This wording tells us nothing about exactly what is being debated, and it suppresses information about research. It does not matter if I or anyone else disagrees with this research; Wikipedia goes by WP:Verifiability, WP:UNDUE and WP:FRINGE on matters like these. This research is verifiable and is not at all undue weight or fringe. While Wikipedia also goes by WP:Neutral, WP:Neutral does not mean "suppressing a study," especially if that study is reporting a general consensus among scholars; not that the information in question is definitively general consensus, but I have seen a variety of reliable sources report the same thing over the years. It usually takes more than one study to trump research that has been consistently duplicated. What should be done in this case, per the way that Wikipedia is supposed to work, is to mention these findings and to also mention any opposing research beside it. I have discussed that type of formatting with Avalongod before. That said, if research leans significantly more to the former side, the latter side should not be given as much weight. Flyer22 (talk) 05:55, 22 November 2012 (UTC)

Thanx Flyer. Yes Flyer and I sometimes (respectfully) disagree on matters. At play here is, however, not that any single study is disagreeing with a *consensus* but that, in fact, the consensus is illusory. Although it's certainly not uncommon to hear people (including some scholars) make conclusive statements about media effects, a thorough examination of the research reveals there is no consistency at all. IF we're going to go by "veryfiability" than this is something easily verifiable and I am happy to provide a number of citations if we wish to include a back and forth "research in support of belief X" and "research inconsistent with researc X" expansion. But I don't think we can make conclusive "factual" statements, and simply ignore research with conflicts with that statement. In science that is called "citation bias" and is bad practice in science and should not be reified here. As it is, both sides are represented by a single citation. That obviously could be expanded, but no studies were supressed. I am happy either keeping it to a quick "scholars disagree" statement, or to something which is longer and more detailed about both sides...but not something which is simply factually incorrect. Respectfully Avalongod (talk) 06:36, 22 November 2012 (UTC)

Sorry for the late reply, Avalongod. Since no one else has weighed in on this, we might have to eventually take this to some form of WP:Dispute resolution. To elaborate on my issue with the way you edited the text: I view it as you having suppressed a study because you deleted it from the text and have left it regulated to the source. If you aren't aware, a lot of readers don't know what those numbers (the citations) that are placed beside text mean and many won't be checking the sources to see what they state. Not to mention, those who don't have full access to the sources.

Another big point is that we are not supposed to create false balance. There are going to be times where balance is not 50/50. WP:Neutral explains this, and it's policy. You state that consensus on this topic is illusory. But I've read a lot of the literature on it as well, and I'm comfortable stating that the media contributes to people's body image. Studies have consistently shown this to be the case. And with the media's portrayal of "ideal body types" being one of the main causes of Anorexia nervosa, I fail to see how it can be convincingly argued that "the media has nothing to do with people's perceptions of their looks." As can be seen in the section in question, we have a whole Wikipedia article on this -- Body image -- and most of the sources in that article support the assertion that the media does affect body image. Personally, I have experienced this type of effect. Being female, I definitely saw imagery that conveyed to me that "I should look this way" while growing up (although I got my fair share of compliments about my looks), and I still see it. I of course also saw this type of effect among various female friends and acquaintances. One acquaintance suffered from Anorexia nervosa, and expressed how she became that way; it wasn't because of some biological disease, but rather because she felt that she should be as skinny as the media was telling her that she should be. So, all that taken into account, I'm sure that you can see why it's difficult for me to believe that the media has no effect on body image. Stating that the media's effect on body image has been exaggerated is one thing; stating that there are no effects is another. But it's not about what I believe. It's about what reliable sources state. And I've seen most sources on this topic state that the media does have an effect on body image. It appears to me that the "no effects" and/or the "exaggerated effects" views are the minority views. And per WP:Neutral, which WP:UNDUE is a part of, we aren't supposed to give the minority view as much weight as the majority view. That stated, even if we argue that the line stating that "on average, girls are found to be more focused on thinness while teenage boys have more of a drive to appear muscular and fit" isn't that much of a majority conclusion, but rather a widely reported conclusion, it's still reported in a lot more sources than the "no effects" and/or the "exaggerated effects" views. And it does state "on average" for qualification. But I'm of course fine with you going ahead and expanding that section and including content from both sides; it's better than vagueness. Flyer22 (talk) 09:47, 25 November 2012 (UTC)

Hi to both of you! I checked both articles that were used as references.

• The Ata article clearly said that "males were concerned with increasing their upper body, whereas females wanted to decrease the overall size of their body." However, the article did not connect this to media - which is the section heading. So in order to write about this relevant distinction in the article, it should be part of a "body image" section that is not a subsection of a media section. The abstract did not connect this to media, but the article actually does, but not as the only or even as the most important factor.
• The Ferguson article says: "Disagreement exists regarding the nature of media influences, with meta-analytic results suggesting only small effect sizes."

So, based on these two sources, I would go even a bit further than the present "Scholars continue to debate the effects of media on body dissatisfaction in teens." into something like: "Review studies suggest that media only has a small effect on body dissatisfaction."

With friendly regards! Lova Falk talk 11:09, 8 December 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for weighing in on this, Lova Falk and for your recent edits to the Media section. I especially appreciate you adding back this that Avalongod recently removed as an IP, and tweaking it. That's part of what I've been talking about with Avalongod -- if the text is largely valid, then tweak it; don't throw out the entire text. Temporarily removing it from the article to work on it (such as moving it to the talk page) is something that I have no problems with. As for the Ata source, its titled The effects of gender and family, friend, and media influences on eating behaviors and body image during adolescence. So I'm wondering how its aforementioned line about body image is not about the media's influence. Either way, if we were to have two sections in the article about body image, the titles would need to be somewhat distinguished. Not only to tell readers briefly how the two sections differ, but also as to not take editors to the wrong section when they are editing it; by that, I mean that sections on Wikipedia that have the same title automatically take editors to the first section that has that same title after they hit the "Save page" button. As for the other source, I'd keep the "Scholars continue to debate the effects of media on body dissatisfaction in teens." line, but combine it with your suggested line of "Review studies suggest that media only has a small effect on body dissatisfaction." by adding a comma and "but" between the lines and decapitalizing "Review." However, you are stating that the Ferguson source doesn't mention scholars debating the effects of media on body dissatisfaction in teens, correct, but that it's rather talking about scholars debating the effects of media on body dissatisfaction in females in general (girls and women)? If so, then we should use a different source for the "Scholars continue to debate the effects of media on body dissatisfaction in teens." part. Flyer22 (talk) 17:57, 8 December 2012 (UTC)

Since you added the PDFs for these two sources, which show the full texts for them, I will be reading them at a later date. Flyer22 (talk) 18:18, 8 December 2012 (UTC)

I have now worked through the article one more time, and it does mention the influence of media on body image - however, it says both that media has an influence, but also that "It may be that messages communicated by the media only become problematic when they are reinforced by more immediate sociocultural agents such as parents and peers." and "Research suggests that perceived pressure from peers to be thin is more associated with increases in adolescents’ body dissatisfaction over time than pressures to be thin from family or the media." I think the first half of the Ata article (which is a review of previous research) is a good source for a section on body image, in which all factors from the article can be mentioned: self esteem, teasing from friends and family, and the media. Writing such a section is a big job though! Lova Falk talk 20:26, 8 December 2012 (UTC)

I see, and I agree with your suggestion. More good sources to go along with the Ata source would be preferable than just the Ata and Ferguson sources by themselves, though, I feel. Flyer22 (talk) 23:20, 8 December 2012 (UTC)

Wow this looks better

I must say I am so impressed with how far this page has come in the last year. Just a thank you for everyone's work. Nancydarling (talk) 00:50, 23 January 2013 (UTC)

Agreed. Flyer22 (talk) 00:51, 23 January 2013 (UTC)

Lead image

What is the consensus lead image? Here are (I think) the four most recent:

• File:Teenagerphoto.jpg (recently added, removed pending this discussion)

• File:SixTeenagers.jpg

• File:Teens.jpg

• File:Cubes teenager.jpg

In my opinion, all of them are problematic for one reason or another. Isn't there a nice historical photograph somewhere that we can use? --Bongwarrior (talk) 07:27, 18 March 2013 (UTC)

There is no consensus lead image. But as for consensus on the images in general, the main consensus on the matter has been what was agreed to in the Further changes after merge discussion and the #Images discussion above. If you hadn't reverted the File:Teenagerphoto.jpg, I would have; an image of one teenager should not be the lead image. File:Cubes teenager.jpg, however, has been an image that I and others have not had a problem with because it appropriately accompanies the Puberty section. I do feel that we should include images of real-life teenagers in the article. So what do you mean by historical images? Images of teenagers from history? Why not also use images of modern-day teenagers? If self-promotion is the concern, self-promotion is difficult to dispute with a lot of images of real people on Wikipedia (images that exist because a person has uploaded an image of themselves). This diff-link shows the images that the lead previously used. Flyer22 (talk) 11:32, 18 March 2013 (UTC)

That diff-link also shows an image of "German teens in Bonn in 1988" that was previously used for the History section. Flyer22 (talk) 11:41, 18 March 2013 (UTC)

I don't have a problem with the Cubes teenager image itself, but I don't think it works very well as the lead image. I'm not sure "historical" was the best word to use, but you saw what I was getting at - something old enough so that, at least, we know it wasn't taken for the express purpose of someone putting their friends up on Wikipedia; if they were good-quality pictures it wouldn't really matter so much, but they're usually horrendous pictures. Just my opinion, of course - I was just passing through, and whatever everyone else wants to use is fine with me. I did notice this picture on Commons, if I may offer one suggestion. It's not old and not perfect, but it's not bad. It might be just a little too unfocused though. --Bongwarrior (talk) 12:27, 18 March 2013 (UTC)

Yes, of course, File:Cubes teenager.jpg shouldn't be used as the lead image; that would be inappropriate, since it is only the torso of a lone male. As for your suggested image, I don't mind that being used as the lead image, since it is at least of two people. But I, and I'm sure others, would state that it's not broad in its representation. Despite agreement with the class to remove them, I'd prefer that we use two of the three images that were previously used for the lead; I'm speaking of the version I linked to at the end of my first comment above. But, again, I don't mind if you implement your suggestion. Flyer22 (talk) 13:01, 18 March 2013 (UTC)

Actually, the version I linked to in my first comment above isn't that broad either. But what I mean is that I prefer an image that shows a group of adolescents, one that shows boys and girls, preferably of different ethnicities, as to show diversity. As you can see, choosing a lead image for this article is not as easy as it would appear. Flyer22 (talk) 13:14, 18 March 2013 (UTC)

I'll leave the implementation to you or whoever else; since you have been putting the work into the article, your preference should carry more weight than mine. Normally I would have just rolled it back and moved on, but I found myself in a bit of a bind because it seemed like there wasn't a preferred image to revert back to: the one I removed was pretty obviously wrong, but the one before it had been tagged due to personality rights concerns (which I really don't know much about; maybe it's nothing) and also seemed slightly Facebook-ish, File:Teens.jpg didn't really look like much of anything when shrunk down to thumbnail size, and the other one was just a torso. I don't have any strong objections to the first two images in the old version that you linked to, but the third one (Indian teenagers) looks slightly creepy to me, and they may be a little too old as well. Another picture from that version (File:Bundesarchiv B 145 Bild-F079046-0008, Bonn, Omnibus.jpg) isn't bad, although the caption is irritating and would need to be removed. --Bongwarrior (talk) 22:17, 18 March 2013 (UTC)

I don't feel that my opinion should carry more weight than yours on this matter. And the current state of the article is mostly the result of Nancydarling's classes occasionally working on the article, as first shown in the "Further changes after merge" discussion linked above and in the above #Editing initiative section. I understand what you mean about having an image of a group that barely shows what the group looks like when scaled down to appropriate size for the article. That's the downside of using a group image, and is why it's better to use a group image that only consists of three to six people in this case. The first two images in the old version are what were used before the third image (Indian teenagers) was added by someone. And while that second image only shows very young-looking Polish boys, at least the first one is more diverse. While adolescence ranges from very young (such as a 9-year-old) to very old (such as a 19-year-old, or early 20-somethings according to some interpretations), I prefer that the lead image be somewhere in between the two for balance. You feel that the Indian teenagers look a little too old; I feel that the German teenagers in Bonn in 1988 look too young (more like early middle school students). I'm also not sure that a black and white picture is as acceptable to people as a color picture for the lead image. So except for the "German teens in Bonn in 1988" image, I am fine with either of your suggestions. I'll wait to see if others weigh in on this discussion. But even if no one else does, I'm still not sure that I'll be the one to add a lead image or two. Flyer22 (talk) 23:07, 18 March 2013 (UTC)

Two teenagers listening to music

Teenagers in Oslo

Well, it has been a week and nobody else has commented. We really should get something up there. What do you think about using these two for now? I think the first one is a nice image, and the second shows some diversity. We're not bound to have them in the lead forever, but I think they'll serve just fine for the time being. --Bongwarrior (talk) 01:22, 26 March 2013 (UTC)

Yep, seeing as I like those two images, and the second one is a bit diverse, I agree with using them as the lead images. And, yes, what is the lead image or images can always change. Flyer22 (talk) 04:47, 26 March 2013 (UTC)

I've gone ahead and added them. --Bongwarrior (talk) 06:31, 26 March 2013 (UTC)

Functionalist bias in lead

The opening paragraphs seem to imply that all social scientists look at adolescence as a functional stage of preparation for adulthood; however, the article itself describes social factors primarily in terms of identity construction. 72.192.13.10 (talk) 04:19, 14 October 2013 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 18 January 2014

Please unprotect this page. Thank you. 72.200.189.217 (talk) 01:16, 18 January 2014 (UTC)

Not done: requests for changes to the page protection level should be made at Wikipedia:Requests for page protection. --ElHef (Meep?) 01:17, 18 January 2014 (UTC)

This article will not be unprotected solely so that you can engage in more of your WP:Disruption and WP:Vandalism, IP. ElHef, take notice that this article was recently WP:Semi-protected by Mark Arsten because of this IP's disruption and vandalism to it; this is seen by the IP contributions, blocklog...and talk page. Flyer22 (talk) 02:43, 19 January 2014 (UTC)

Risk Taking

It assumes that there is a universal acceptance that adolescents engage in more risky behavior than adults while there is a certain percentage of sociologists who would dramatically disagree with this assumption (Males, Michael Adolescent Brain and Risk Taking Journal of Adolescent Research January 2009). There is additionally no statistical reference for the statement that most injuries to adolescents are caused by risky behavior, since the majority of injuries likely go unreported it seems an impossible claim to make. Most adolescent deaths are caused by injury but to make the leap to risky behavior causation is problematic. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Wahoo Ed (talk • contribs) 18:31, 27 February 2014 (UTC)

Fringe?

An edit "Not all psychologists believe that orientation is immutable."Sexual Orientation: Is It Unchangeable?". Psychology Today. 2011. Retrieved March 12, 2014. {{cite journal}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help); Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)" was reverted, suggesting that it was WP:FRINGE? I was not aware that Psychology Today was in the habit of publishing fringe material. I appreciate that the article says "pop psychology," but goes on to say it is endorsed by National Board for Certified Counselors. Student7 (talk) 21:12, 12 March 2014 (UTC)

I reverted you on this and this because while Psychology Today is not a WP:Fringe magazine, what you added is out of step with what the vast majority of researchers believe about sexual orientation and your text is not supported by that Psychology Today source. Neither the author of that article nor the researchers mentioned in that article are cited as believing that sexual orientation is changeable. Scientists, including the major scientific organizations, generally (note: I stated "generally") do not believe that sexual orientation can be changed (they are especially clear about that with regard to sexual orientation change efforts), though they readily recognize that sexual identity can be a choice and can therefore change; this is because, well, there's no doubt that sexual identity can change (it's a label that has often shown itself not to align with a person's true sexual orientation, especially in the case of LGB people). The Psychology Today source you cited even addresses whether the sexual identity was lining up with the sexual orientation in the cases it mentions; it states, in part, "Is sexual orientation fluid and/or changeable? Or are some gay and lesbian people really closeted bisexuals?" Your text was also an irrelevant side note, in my opinion; it is not relevant to these sections to essentially state: "Oh, and by the way, some scientists believe sexual orientation can change." It does not flow with what these sections are discussing.

The author also begins by tackling a different matter -- whether or not someone is born gay (homosexual). Well, scientific consensus is not that sexual orientation is only biological, whether that includes hormone exposure or not, as is made clear by this American Psychological Association source, which is from the largest organization of psychologists in the world. There is no true consensus among scientists on the topic of sexual orientation, except that sexual orientation is not a choice and is unlikely to change; they favor biological models for the cause of sexual orientation, but generally believe that sexual orientation is determined by a complex interplay of genetic, hormonal and environmental factors (womb environment and/or social environment); biological models can also include social factors. There are few scientists out there who believe that sexual orientation is only determined by one factor, and there are many of them who don't believe that it's complete by birth; the American Psychological Association, for example (same source noted above), states (in its "How do people know if they are lesbian, gay, or bisexual?" section): "According to current scientific and professional understanding, the core attractions that form the basis for adult sexual orientation typically emerge between middle childhood and early adolescence." Flyer22 (talk) 22:22, 12 March 2014 (UTC)

Oh, and the fact that it's common for researchers to believe that women's sexuality is more fluid than men's sexuality is a somewhat different matter than general discussions of sexual orientation. That type of thing is addressed in some articles on Wikipedia; for example, in this section in the Sexual arousal article. Flyer22 (talk) 22:31, 12 March 2014 (UTC)

Romance and sexual activity

Hello,

I am especially interested in the romance part of the "Romance and sexual activity" section. I'm aware that there is a separate Adolescent Sexuality page, but I'm wondering what more can be said on this page about adolescent romance and relationships.

I think the information on prevalence of relationships and the other supporting numerical data is important and relevant. I wonder if it would be useful to go a step further in consideration of the role or purpose of a relationship for this age group. I see that the section gets at the long term benefits and implications for adult relationships, but what about the implications for that developing adolescent (which is also touched on with the self terms, such as self-esteem and self-confidence)?

So, for example, what if we added a developmental perspective -- Authors Connolly & McIsaac (2009) characterize adolescent relationships in three stages. By adding something like this to the section, maybe we would be showing readers what an adolescent romantic relationship "looks like" or how it develops. Additionally, we could add in sources getting closer to the purpose/role of the stages.

Any thoughts?

This is my first time thinking critically or trying to edit a Wikipedia page!

Cheers Kef4d (talk) 06:21, 18 March 2014 (UTC)

I'd rather that not a lot of additional material is placed there, since there is a separate article that is provided to present details about adolescent sexuality. And when adding health content to this article, like you did here, make sure that it is compliant with the Wikipedia:Identifying reliable sources (medicine) (WP:MEDRS) guideline. Flyer22 (talk) 11:57, 18 March 2014 (UTC)

References

About pruning

From the "Synaptic pruning" wiki page: "Pruning starts near the time of birth and is completed by the time of sexual maturation in humans."

But here it mentions that pruning occurs during adolescence, i.e. 13..25 years of age. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.195.128.252 (talk) 08:02, 20 March 2014 (UTC)

→This literature has changed dramatically in the last 10 years. Nancydarling (talk) 04:30, 1 February 2016 (UTC)

Class project again

Ss13zf (talk · contribs), regarding this, will you explain what you all intend to do with the article? Also, who is your professor? This article has been the subject of a WP:Class assignment a couple or few times now; see Talk:Adolescence/Archive 5#Further changes after merge and #Editing initiative. Flyer22 (talk) 18:39, 9 September 2014 (UTC)

Hi Flyer22, thanks for noticing us on here! We are first year nursing students who have been assigned this topic by our professor, LynnMcCleary, as part of our "Professional and Therapeutic Communications" class. Our intention is to review and then add to and/or edit information under the social development and culture sections with respect to communication. As this article is rated a B class on Wikipedia our only hope is to further improve the article or suggest what we feel should be added/deleted. We feel some content on communication would be valuable to the subject. We recognize that you and your fellow Wikipedia editors have already done a wonderful job in getting it to its current state. We will be working in a group sandbox for this project. Once it is up and running we will post a link here. We use the sandbox to talk and help each other to figure out what might be suggested for edits within the Adolescence page prior to posting there. We are new to this and certainly welcome input and assistance from yourself and others. Thank you. - User:Kr13al 15:31, 1 October 2014 (UTC)

1) Not sure whether you are working at this top down or bottom up. But if "top down", perhaps you can tell us in advance about any structural changes you are thinking of, if any. 2) Will "communication" be scattered among the various subsections, or will it be condensed into (under) one subsection? Cognitive development? Actually, the places for "communication" changes are potentially extensive. If more than one subsection (or a lot of subsections), a bit difficult for a class project, per se, IMO. And hard for us to review, as well as for you to plan. Student7 (talk) 20:58, 8 October 2014 (UTC)

Hi Student7. There are definitely a lot of areas in the article where communication could be relevant so I agree with you it could and would be a bit much for a class project. That being said we are all finding sources right now and narrowing down what we want to add/edit. We will not be trying to edit a lot of sections. Right now the biggest areas that are being discussed are communication with respect to identity development, self esteem and how adolescents communicate with one another (specifically the channels). If I've missed anything there I apologize in advance to my group. I also saw your comment on our talk page and we will definitely keep that in mind and do our best. I am sure we will talk again with you as we get further along in our project and we all thank you and your fellow Wikipedia editors for your help....and tolerance for yet another class project :) Kr13al. 00:13, 12 October 2014 (UTC)

Kr13al, as you and some other members of your class know, I've seen you all working at User talk:Ss13zf/adolescencepagewikiprojectSANDBOX and commented there. As can be seen there, your professor replied, informing me of what you all will be doing. She also commented further on my involvement. I am pleased that you all are being guided well, will not be making substantial edits without the input of the usual editors of this article first. Do take Student7's concerns in mind. Flyer22 (talk) 01:05, 9 October 2014 (UTC)

Hi everyone, we are getting closer to making our edits now and have done some work in our sandbox if you'd like to check it out. User:Ss13zf/adolescencepagewikiprojectSANDBOX What we plan on changing/adding is in bold on the sandbox so that we (and others) can find it easily.Karen R. 16:55, 30 October 2014 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Kr13al (talk • contribs)

Hello everyone. We posted our edits today for our class project and I am tagging our professor so that she can see this; user:LynnMcCleary. As we have explained above this is a class project for our communications class so we were focused on adding/editing information on adolescence with an eye to communication. I have posted the edits for everyone in my group but we will each be explaining our particular contributions.

My edits were focused on the relationships section of social development;

I noticed in the first subsection, “In general”, there is was an excessive use of the word vital which to me detracts from the importance of the material as it loses its effect. I have changed a couple of them to different words as I find it reads better. I also added some content to expand on the idea of teenagers using comparison in their social development. This is an important aspect of communication and one’s development of self so I wanted to flesh it out a bit.

I also added some content to the “Peers” subsection. I added a paragraph at the end to discuss the ways in which adolescents communicate with one another. In today’s society technology is becoming more and more important in communication and teenagers especially are a large user of new forms such as texting and we as a group felt that it was important to include some information regarding this. I also added a sentence earlier in the peers section regarding the different social skills attained through peer communication.

The rest of our group members will post similar explanations shortly. Overall we did not change or add much I don't think as it is already a great article. We just tried to add some communication information that we felt added to the article and we hope you agree. Thank you for your previous comments and assistance. kr13al 17:15, 3 November 2014 (UTC)

Kr13al, yes, I see the changes here. Nice job. I was about to fix WP:REFPUNCT issues regarding it, but Bgwhite fixed that here; so thank you, Bgwhite. Flyer22 (talk) 00:44, 4 November 2014 (UTC)

Thanks to both of you!! kr13al 01:23, 4 November 2014 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Kr13al (talk • contribs)

Hello Adolescence page! I am working alongside kr13al and ls12ue in our nursing communication project on this page. I'm very happy to see some positive feedback on the changes we have made, and are very open (and hoping for) criticism. My edits were focused on the Identity development, self-concept, sense of identity, and self-esteem sections of this article. I adjusted the opening sentences in each section to open up the flow, and make it sound a little bit less intimidating. I also added various definitions (self-esteem, self-concept) so give readers a little more insight into the topic at hand. I fixed a few grammatical and spelling errors (very minor, changed 'grad' to 'grand', and added a few commas) simply syntax fixes. I put a very valuable citation in this article that discusses communication through various elements of the adolescent life circle and I definitely recommend giving it a read if this topic is of any interest to you. Finally I added a little blurb about the importance of the parent-child relationship in regards to online communication and social media in the Family section of this article. I tried to stay as neutral as possible, by giving the parents, child's, and professions views (and cited a source that was very neutral as well).

Again thank you all so much for your help along the way with this project. It has been a journey, but I speak for our entire group when I say that it has been a great learning experience. So many of you have helped us on our sandbox and on this page, and I know there is so much more guidance coming.There will only be a little more action on this page from us in the next couple weeks (peers will be looking at our edits and will suggest changes, and we can decide how and if to incorporate those changes). Thanks again everyone! Be bold! :) Ss13zf (talk) 03:51, 4 November 2014 (UTC)

Hello Adolescence Wikipedia page. As the final member of our group for our editing project I am going to explain my contributions. I tried to add in little detials to the sections that help give a better understanding of them. For "Sense of Identity", I simply added a comment about how adolescents style themselves in different manners to find what best suits them. The "Family" sections was well-informed so I added a sentence regarding the increasing independence of adolescents and the opposing struggle to maintain a caring relationship with parents. I felt that this is a major struggle in adolescence and that many can relate to it. For the "Peers" sections, I included technology as a way to broaden friendships and peer grouos as well as choosing peers based on similar characteristics found in the adolescent themselves. My last edits was in the "Romance and Sexuality" section where I felt it was very important to include how technology, such as social media can be used to seek out romantic relationships. All in all we did few edits but we made sure that the information we did add was relevant and relatable.

Thank you everyone for your comments and support along our project. You gave us compliments and a general guide to follow while editing. I hope you apporve of our changes and feel free to modify anything that could be worded or phrased better. Ls12ue (talk) 14:30, 4 November 2014 (UTC)

Review for class project

Hey Wikipedia editors of the adolescence page. I have been assigned to edit this page for a nursing class. For the nursing students who have edited this page, I would like to say you have done very good job in improving this article. I think that your addition to the peers section about channels was very well written. I thought I would comment on what you have done by using the Wikipedia good article criteria. If you have any questions about what I have said, don’t hesitate to ask.

1)Verifiability- this article is well sourced for the most part, which is great.

-One thing that I noticed was the missing citation on the actual adolescence page from the sentences, “ Teens are heavy users of newer forms of communication such as text message and social-networking websites such as Facebook, especially when communicating with peers.” And the sentence, “Some adolescents use these newer channels to enhance relationships with peers however there can be negative uses as well such as cyberbullying, as mentioned previously, and negative impacts on the family.”

- In the sandbox for the nursing students editing this page, the citation is there but is written incorrectly.

-The link used for the sentence used for following sentence is dead, “Despite changing family roles during adolescence, the home environment and parents are still important for the behaviors and choices of adolescents”

2) Images.

-It would be a great addition to the page if an image could be added to the peer’s section, which could help explain the idea of channels. In the caption, you could add key points about channels to help breakdown the paragraph that was written.

Brittany Trojek 02:36, 10 November 2014 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Bt13kybrock (talk • contribs)

Thanks for your comments and ideas Brittany. I think I fixed the missing citation you caught. Thanks for letting us know. Still working on the rest of the comments. kr13al 02:24, 14 November 2014 (UTC)

We have now added an image to the peers and communication channels after getting the ok from one of the regular editors of this page. The discussion regarding images is further up on this talk page as there has been an ongoing discussion on this article regarding images for some time now. Thanks! kr13al 14:35, 14 November 2014 (UTC)

Glad you agreed with my comments, everything looks great! 139.57.201.33 (talk) 23:50, 18 November 2014 (UTC)

Comment

My initial thoughts after a quick run through. There seems to be a bit of overkill with the sourcing in the first paragraph. Certain areas in the body seem to be under cited too; Changes in the brain, most of cognitive development, there are intermittent paragraphs throughout the article without proper citations. The length of the article is way too long. Where possible paragraphs should only be summaries with links to longer articles (puberty). Transition to adulthood seems like a redundant paragraph. There seems to be many sentences that could be amalgamated and cleaned up. Lots of unnecessary clauses. Hollth (talk) 15:09, 4 October 2014 (UTC)

Hello, Hollth (talk · contribs). I appreciate your above assessment. The vast majority of the article is the way that it is because of WP:Class assignments. The Adolescence article continues to be a destination for WP:Class assignments, as recently as the #Class project again section above, and they have often added a lot of things to the article, more so than they have cut from it, and things in it have gotten overly expanded, disjointed, and so on. Flyer22 (talk) 01:13, 9 October 2014 (UTC)

Thank you Hollth and Flyer22 , I am the professor for these four students. We greatly appreciate any advice and guidance you can give them. I expect the students to respond to Hollth's advice with some editing. Unfortunately for my other students, many of them are working on articles that aren't very active, so they're not going to benefit from advice of editors like you. These students are learning from you. We appreciate it. I'm really pleased that the students are enthused about Wikipedia editing and I'm hoping that some of my students will use what they've learned to stick around and continue to contribute to Wikipedia. A few of these students' classmates will be joining the discussion of the edits today/this week. Hopefully they will have some ideas about what is essential and what maybe could be edited to maintain coherence in this article. Thanks again. LynnMcCleary (talk) 19:21, 6 November 2014 (UTC)

Hi Hollth and LynnMcCleary! When I read Hollth's comment I didn't see too much that pertained specifically to the section we were responsible for. I do agree that there is a lot of sourcing in the first paragraph though that was not in the scope of our assignment so we did not look at it too much. With respect to the rest of the article I don't think we added too much and I will discuss with my group members whether there is anything we feel comfortable cutting from the social development section. One of the sections we spent a lot of time and discussion on was the peer section relationships within the social development section. In rereading it keeping your comments in mind I am thinking perhaps we could move the 4th paragraph in with the 2nd and condense. I appreciate your thoughts on this. Also if Flyer22 or my group members had anything to add as well that would be great! Again we appreciate everyones help as we are new at this. Thanks! kr13al 21:49, 13 November 2014 (UTC)

Ok I didn't end up cutting but I did reorganize and combine a couple of paragraphs that I thought fit together. I think it flows well. Let me know! Thanks 139.57.217.188 (talk) 13:57, 18 November 2014 (UTC)

Forgot to log in before I made that last edit. Sorry it was me, kr13al 13:58, 18 November 2014 (UTC)

Student Edits on Class Project

Hi User:Kr13al, User:Ls12ue, User:Ss13zf, User:Vs14gJ, I have been assigned to edit your posts on this wikipedia page by professor McCleary. You have all done a really great job editing this article and have added a lot of relevant information into a variety of different areas. This was a featured article so all of your edits met the good article criteria and were relevant and useful. I noticed that you included lots of information about communication between an adolescent and their peers, which is very useful. In the future, perhaps you could also include information about communication between an adolescent and their parents or communication problems that may occur while an adolescent is maturing. Otherwise, everything that you added met the good article criteria and was a helpful contribution to the page. Congratulations on completing this assignment! Kl13ah123 (talk) 03:07, 10 November 2014 (UTC)

Thank you for reviewing our edits and offering comments and suggestions. I agree that more content with respect to communication between adolescents and their parents could be added. There were so many places in this article where information on communication could be relevant, as pointed out by earlier by another Wikipedia editor, Student7. Therefore the potential for edits was vast and we had to narrow down where we were going to focus. We did add a couple of sentences to the parents section of relationships but I agree that there is potential for future edits regarding this. kr13al 18:44, 17 November 2014 (UTC)

Thank you for your review! As mentioned above I also agree that we needed more content, but with such a large and popular page we really needed to hone in on one topic. I hope you got to see some of our other little edits here and there to touch upon the page as much as we could (without biting off more than we could chew). Thanks again, happy editing! Ss13zf (talk) 06:46, 19 November 2014 (UTC)

Hello fellow classmates and adolescence group. I have been assigned to edit this page but before I start I would just like to take a second and say congratulations on becoming official Wikipedia editors. I believe it looks really good on us as a school, but more importantly, our program. After having a read though the changes that have been made to the Wikipedia page, I have to say that I am very impressed with how the page looks. When getting into small details about what I think could be altered slightly, I want to start with the “Identity development” section. I really like that there was a sentence added to start the paragraph stronger, but I believe if there was a small part added about what theory it came from, would give readers a better description of what it is. The addition to the self-esteem section is very well put and flows nicely into the paragraph, however I think that if the definition of self-esteem definition was put at the beginning of the edit, it would be more effective for readers. I am having issues editing the other major parts that have been changed because I feel that the info has been put in the right spot, however having more descriptive words may give the reader a better visual image. A perfect example of this is in the “in general” section where critical and significant have been added into sentences to make the sentence stronger and better structured.

Hi! Thank you for your feedback it has actually been very helpful! Thank you for your comment about the opening sentence! The old one was a little off so I felt that changing it would make the article easier to read (thanks for noticing!) I agree with what you've said about the self-esteem definition and will do my best to move it (by adjusting the flow of the paragraph and so on). We will also take a look at grammar throughout the make the article a little stronger. Overall this was very helpful feedback and followed the feedback criteria well. Thanks again, happy editing! Ss13zf (talk) 06:46, 19 November 2014 (UTC)

Overall, very well done group. I am very impressed. Ba13qy (talk) 03:17, 13 November 2014 (UTC)

Goodbye and Thank You

Hi editors! I am ss13zf and I was one of the students who was assigned to edit this page as a requirement for a nursing course. I would just like to personally say thank you for all of your help editing. A special thank you goes out to Flyer22 for all of your words of wisdom and help along the way. This is our goodbye to the Adolescence page! We have completed out assigned tasks and we hope you are happy with the outcome. Happy editing everyone, and don't forget to be bold! Ss13zf (talk) 20:34, 19 November 2014 (UTC)

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New section on demographics and information

An advanced seminar I taught on adolescent development did a major revision of this page several years ago. My new class in Adolescent Development is going to do a project where we research basic demographic information on adolescents around the world. This would include things like proportion of the population from 12-25 (or similar), age of major legal transitions (voting, marriage, work), percent of adolescents in school, working, married, etc. We will have both tabular and graphic data. I'd like to incorporate that into this article, but am not sure where (culture might be appropriate and it's one of the weaker sections). Suggestions are welcome.

We may be doing some other edits as we go through. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Nxd10 (talk • contribs)

Nxd10 (talk · contribs), I remember you worked on this article with a class before; see Talk:Adolescence/Archive 5#Merge Adolescent development here and the content after that section. There was also a different class working on the article not too long ago; see the #Class project again section above. Besides worrying about classes not being familiar with our policies and guidelines, I worry about the size of an article when it is as big as this one currently is. See WP:SIZE. With each class assignment, this article gets bigger and bigger. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 22:13, 31 January 2016 (UTC) Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 22:15, 31 January 2016 (UTC)

And, Nancydarling, since you are still using two different accounts, you need to note on the Nxd10 page that it is an alternate Nancydarling account; see WP:SOCK#LEGIT if you really need two different accounts. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 22:22, 31 January 2016 (UTC)

I worry about this too, which is why I asked for feedback. What I want the class to add is a table and possibly a graphic that would help to summarize some of the information presented as text under cultural and legal issues. The beginning of the article is quite tight, but the end is pretty sprawling. And the section I'd like to work on is the one where there's a note requesting editing. In addition, a number of commenters have suggested the piece is too Western focused, which is a valid complaint. The goal of the new material would be to supplement and replace some of the undocumented material in that section.

In some ways, I feel like what is needed is a link to another page or sub-article. However, I am unclear what the stub would be. We can do the project without including it in Wikipedia of course, but it is exactly the kind of information you'd expect to find in an encyclopedia.

I will look at my Nancydarling account and try to merge them into one or put a note to that effect. Nxd10 (talk) 04:13, 1 February 2016 (UTC)Nxd10

→Put in the new userid info under Nxd10. I can edit under Nancydarling if that makes it easier. I actually didn't remember that old username.Nancydarling (talk) 04:32, 1 February 2016 (UTC) 04:21, 1 February 2016 (UTC)

Which part(s) of the article do you feel is too Western-focused? Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 07:40, 1 February 2016 (UTC)

In general, material on normative transitions assume Western ages. I haven't gone through it in detail after the last revision, so that may have improved. I am not planning on having the class do anything with that (I may edit a little personally as I go through my lectures this year). The material I want to add has important information to put adolescence in context,however. For example differences in birth rates by region (8:1000 v. 108:1000), age of marriage, percent in school, etc. When we finish compiling the information, I can post it in Talk and we can decide if it should be included. The full documentation of those numbers is one of the things needed in the Culture section. "Developing countries" goes from urban India to rural South Africa - these are very different contexts. I think a table with just basic demographic information and ages of normative transitions would ground that and support the broad statements in those sections. As I say, this is not a big edit, it's mostly documentation, referring to sources for more information, and summary tables referring to primary sources. Nancydarling (talk) 13:42, 1 February 2016 (UTC)

Okay, thanks for explaining. Remember to keep the WP:Primary sources policy in mind, though. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 23:57, 1 February 2016 (UTC)

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Template:Human growth and development

As seen here and here, Sharif uddin keeps adding Template:Human growth and development to the top of the article, and I've reverted because it is redundant to Template:Human development at the bottom of the article; we do not need both templates at this article. And neither is needed at the top of the article. I will bring WP:Med into this matter. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 08:28, 19 March 2016 (UTC)

Alerted. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 08:34, 19 March 2016 (UTC)

• agree w/ Flyer22 Reborn do not need both templates at this article... neither is needed at the top of the article--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 10:56, 19 March 2016 (UTC)
• All the articles of Template:Human growth and development have the template itself in the top of their pages, (don't think that I have added them) and all of these articles have the Template:Human development in their bottom, so why not in the adolescence; what is the speciality about it? Sharif uddin (talk) 15:59, 19 March 2016 (UTC)

13

Do people below the age of 13 qualify as teenagers? Please submit your answer here. Thanks. Ninefive6 (talk) 09:10, 17 May 2016 (UTC)

"Precocious puberty is very different than the average age of menarche"

Permstrump, regarding this edit, I'm not fully sure why you removed "see precocious puberty." Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 02:48, 8 August 2016 (UTC)

The main reason I removed it was because for most people, the link in the lead was probably either confusing or distracting (or both). The sentence said: "Adolescence is usually associated with the teenage years, but its physical, psychological or cultural expressions may begin earlier and end later. For example, puberty now typically begins during preadolescence, particularly in females (see precocious puberty)." (my emphasis). It sounded like we were saying the normal preadolescent age at onset of puberty in girls is called "precious puberty". It wasn't clear without following the link that precocious puberty is actually an atypical medical condition that often requires hormone therapy and is defined as puberty beginning either by age 6 or 8 (depending on the source), or onset that's more than 2.5 years younger than the population average. It's not essential to understanding the topic and it's covered adequately in the body, so IMO there's no reason to mention it in the lead. —PermStrump(talk) 08:28, 8 August 2016 (UTC)

Permstrump, "precocious puberty" can sometimes refer to "early puberty" that is not an atypical medical condition. The Precocious puberty article addresses this, but it obviously needs work. Some of the sources need to be replaced with better sources. Either way, I understand the reason you removed the text and I don't vehemently object. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 23:49, 8 August 2016 (UTC)

I assumed that even if it's said in a casual way, it would still be referring to someone who began puberty early (as in earlier than whatever normal is), e.g., it might be used in reference to the one kid in the 1st grade class with a deep voice and chest hair who stood out from the rest of his classmates, not >50% of the girls in the 6th grade class that already started menstruating. That was my thought process anyway.... —PermStrump(talk) 00:43, 9 August 2016 (UTC)

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Semi-protected edit request on 30 January 2018

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Lead sentence

JMccoy13, regarding this and this, not only do the sources not state "includes," your wording is awkward and unnecessary. Your wording essentially begins by calling adolescence "a transitional stage" without clarifying what that transitional stage is. Yes, there's "which includes," but "which includes" is simply saying that the transitional stage includes physical and psychological development, as if there is something else not being mentioned, rather than making it clear that physical and psychological development is the transitional stage. I suppose the first source states "transitional phase." The second source states "process." Whichever term we use, we should simply state what adolescence is, without the somewhat vague "which includes" wording. Furthermore, you likely saw the WP:Hidden note that's there making it clear what the consensus wording is and to discuss first. Yet, you still made the changes. If you keep WP:Edit warring over this or adding any preferred wording in place of what is there, I will bring others into this matter. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 19:51, 11 April 2018 (UTC)

Flyer22 Reborn It seems you don't understand what this stage of life is. I didn't change the meaning of the lead sentence, I only clarified it. I am disappointed that you feel the need to threaten me about edit warring. I am not warring, you are the one who has the issue. I hope you take this comment into consideration and realize what I am saying. --JMccoy13 (talk) 13:17, 12 April 2018 (UTC)

I don't have time for this. See the RfC below. We'll let other editors decided. In the meantime, you might want to read WP:edit warring. We already know you need to study WP:Synthesis. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 16:50, 12 April 2018 (UTC)

RfC: Which lead sentence to go with?

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

---

Version 1: Adolescence (from Latin adolescere 'to grow up') is a transitional stage of physical and psychological development that generally occurs during the period from puberty to legal adulthood (age of majority).

Version 2: Adolescence (from Latin adolescere 'to grow up') is a transitional stage, which includes physical and psychological development, that generally occurs during the period from the beginning of puberty to legal adulthood (age of majority).

Note: The difference between the versions are the commas, and the "which includes" and "the beginning of" wording. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 16:50, 12 April 2018 (UTC)

Survey

• Version 1: The alternative is unnecessary and a bit awkward. It essentially begins by calling adolescence "a transitional stage" without clarifying what that transitional stage is. Yes, there's "which includes," but "which includes" is simply saying that the transitional stage includes physical and psychological development, as if there is something else not being mentioned, rather than making it clear that physical and psychological development is the transitional stage. I suppose the first source states "transitional phase." The second source states "process." Whichever term we use, we should simply state what adolescence is, without the somewhat vague "which includes" wording. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 16:50, 12 April 2018 (UTC)

• Version 1. This version introduces the topic neatly and clearly. Version 2 does not; it's sloppily written. Version 2 also introduces a slight change to the definition which is unsupported by the two cited sources that are available online. Rivertorch^FIRE_WATER 18:08, 15 April 2018 (UTC)

• Version 2: Version 2 is the most accurate when it comes to explaining what adolescence is. Version 1 implies something with too much certainty that sources don't support - there is really no consensus among the medical and psychological communities as to what adolescence really is. Version 1 implies that biological changes are a part of adolescence rather than being a part of puberty which happens to coincide with adolescence. Version 2 makes it clear that there are not biological changes occurring in all adolescents. Version 2 is better written than version 1 - version 2 uses more precise wording. Those who claim that version 2 is sloppy writing may lack an understanding of English language comma usages. See this link for information: http://grammar.ccc.commnet.edu/grammar/commas.htm The commas in front of which and after development are being used to set off a parenthetical element, which explains what may happen during the transition stage. It is also clarified in the part of the sentence after the parenthetical element, which says that adolescence is specifically a transition between childhood and adulthood. --JMccoy13 (talk) 21:17, 15 April 2018 (UTC)

You offer no proof that "Version 2 is the most accurate." You have repeatedly engaged in WP:Synthesis and other WP:OR when it comes to adolescent and pubertal topics. And if you keep it up, you will find yourself at WP:ANI. And you can consider that a warning. As for grammar, I've seen Rivertorch be good with grammar. He knows grammar and can see that your change is a grammatical issue. As for claims about biology, adolescence is a concept, and various WP:Reliable sources state that it is a stage of biological and psychological development. I can list any number of them here if it would make you see reason, but we both know that it won't. Regardless, the definition you've tinkered with is not something "that sources don't support." Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 04:20, 16 April 2018 (UTC)

Cool down on the threats. I'm not trying to anger you, I'm here for the facts. Threatening me or anyone else won't get you very far. I am well educated on this topic. I've seen the source or two that you are talking about, but you have to realize they're wrong and that just because some website, even if it's run by a university, publishes something that doesn't mean that's the facts. Sources aren't absolute - use your own head AND proper sources, not bad ones. --JMccoy13 (talk) 12:57, 16 April 2018 (UTC)

Reported at WP:ANI. I told you before that I do not have the patience nor time for your synthesis and disruptive behavior. You have not shown that you are well-educated on this topic or any other topic, in the least. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 21:17, 16 April 2018 (UTC)

• Version 1 – the sources given support this statement. The other version is not an improvement, doesn't seem to be drawn from the sources given, and sounds off. Mathglot (talk) 07:43, 16 April 2018 (UTC)

• version 1 this is much ado about little. The second version leads one to ask, a stage of what? In the first version, we are clearly talking about a stage of development. It is not great writing to interrupt a genitive and this could probably be written more clearly as "a stage of human development" but the first is closer to good. Jytdog (talk) 02:25, 17 April 2018 (UTC)

• Version 1 is simple and clear, nothing is clarified by version 2, rather it sows seeds of doubt as to what else adolescence is. Pincrete (talk) 20:22, 20 April 2018 (UTC)

Discussion

@JMccoy13: I'm well aware of the functions of commas, so I'm not going to spend any time following the link you provided. Aside from the question of sloppy writing, which is subjective, there are a couple of issues here, as I see it. The first is really simple: the change you made is not supported by the sources cited, and you didn't offer alternative sources that support your preferred wording. The second is also pretty simple: Wikipedia content is determined by consensus, and it is absolutely against policy to keep changing previously stable content when someone has objected to your changes; you must get consensus first. In looking over the recent history of the article, I see that you have indeed been edit warring. Before reverting to the established wording, I'll ask you: what alternative sources are you prepared to cite to support your preferred wording? Rivertorch^FIRE_WATER 04:16, 16 April 2018 (UTC)

Let's talk about the sources. Out of the 3 cited, only one is accessible, which is the Merriam Webster dictionary. It says that adolescence is 1 - the period of life when a child develops into an adult / the period from puberty to maturity terminating legally at the age of majority. 2 - the state or process of growing up 3 - a stage of development (as of a language or culture) prior to maturity Definitions 2 and 3 are extremely vague and don't support either version 1 or 2 very well as there's not much information you can get out of them, so let's talk about definition 1. Where does definition 1 say that adolescence is a stage that is included within the stages of biological or psychological development? It says that no where. In fact it heavily implies that adolescence is socially constructed, as it terminates at a legally defined age! Therefore it is far more accurate to say adolescence INCLUDES biological and psychological development, instead of saying it is a stage OF both. This source that I am going to add to version 2 (https://www.britannica.com/science/adolescence) makes it even clearer that adolescence is not a stage OF biological development, rather that it only CAN include it - " In many societies, however, adolescence is narrowly equated with puberty and the cycle of physical changes culminating in reproductive maturity. In other societies adolescence is understood in broader terms that encompass psychological, social, and moral terrain as well as the strictly physical aspects of maturation. In these societies the term adolescence typically refers to the period between ages 12 and 20 and is roughly equivalent to the word teens." The source does say at the top that adolescence is a stage of development, but that is vague. While development does hyperlink to biological development, that is not what is said in the definition. Thus it is more accurate to keep my "which includes" wording, as it properly highlights that adolescence varies from culture to culture in extreme ways and is not biological constant. Some of you may be confused when I say adolescence isn't biological - you are thinking of puberty. A pubescent is often considered an adolescent depending on what society you are in, but not all adolescents are pubescents and not all pubescents are considered adolescents by society. Thus adolescence is a stage OF social transition, WHICH INCLUDES biological development. --JMccoy13 (talk) 13:15, 16 April 2018 (UTC)

Not good. For one thing, it's unclear why you say only the M-W source is "available", since the MedLine source is freely accessible and correctly linked. For another thing, Britannica is a tertiary source and, as such, should be used only in certain circumstances (e.g., when no secondary source is available). In any event, you are still adjusting the article according to your preference, and now you've mentioned "compromise" in an edit summary. I can't make this any plainer: this is disruptive, and it is not how Wikipedia works. You must seek consensus first; if you get consensus, then your wording can go in, but in the meantime the wording should reflect the status quo ante. I'll be reverting to that presently, while discussion continues. Further edit warring is liable to result in the article being locked, with a loss of editing privileges also possible. Rivertorch^FIRE_WATER 14:59, 16 April 2018 (UTC)

There is no confusion on my part. I stated above that adolescence is a concept, and various WP:Reliable sources state that it is a stage of biological and psychological development. I also stated that I can list any number of them here if it would make you see reason, but we both know that it won't. I learned from our discussion at the Adult talk page that you disregard what sources state. Even above, you argued, "I've seen the source or two that you are talking about, but you have to realize they're wrong and that just because some website, even if it's run by a university, publishes something that doesn't mean that's the facts. Sources aren't absolute - use your own head AND proper sources, not bad ones." Listing sources for you would be a waste of my time, but I'll go ahead and note a few: This 2004 "Handbook of Adolescent Psychology" source, from John Wiley & Sons, page 16, notes that the "storm and stress" concept of adolescence "has been revised to represent a more balanced view of adolescence as a period of development characterized by biological, cognitive, emotional, and social 'reorganization' with the aim of adapting to cultural expectations of becoming an adult." This 2008 "Adolescent Health Care: A Practical Guide, Volume 414" source, from Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, page 27, states, "In terms of physical development, adolescence can be described as the period of life beginning with the appearance of secondary sexual characteristics and terminating with the cessation of somatic growth. In modern Western culture, the behavioral aspects of this developmental period have become equally important. Adolescence is, in fact, a biopsychosocial process that may start before the onset of puberty and last well beyond the termination of growth." It also states, "First, it is important to keep in mind that no outline of psychosocial development can adequately describe every adolescent. Adolescents are not a homogeneous group, but display wide variability in biological, psychological, and emotional growth." This 2010 "Handbook of Pediatric Neuropsychology" source, from Springer Publishing Company, page 55, states, "The adolescent stage of life is a dynamic time of biological, cognitive, and social change. As with other stages of human development, it is important to keep in mind that these forces affect the developing young person simultaneously." This 2013 "The Teenage World: Adolescents’ Self-Image in Ten Countries" source, from Springer Science & Business Media, page 1, states, " 'Adolescence' is a psychosocial-biological stage of development that corresponds to changes in many areas which accompany the transition from childhood to adulthood." It also states, "The working definition of adolescence we use is the stage of life that starts with puberty and ends at the time when the person has attained a reasonable degree of independence from his parents." This is also the range that sources generally use, typically timing adolescence as something that begins with puberty and ends with legal adulthood. That adolescence is not defined consistently is also addressed by the source and our very own Wikipedia article; this doesn't negate the fact that we should go with the most common definition, which is what the article does when it comes to range. As for biological and psychological development, sources are clear that this is what adolescence entails. It doesn't make adolescence any less a social construct. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 23:10, 16 April 2018 (UTC)

Comment: I'm a bit concerned at the tail end of the definition: to legal adulthood (age of majority) , whilst it is true that adolescence leads into adulthood, is it a good idea to make the end of adolescence synonymous with legal adulthood? Legal adulthood varies from 15 to 21 on the linked article, and changes occasionally. Whilst the rest of the lead does a good job of clarifying that adolescence cannot be precisely defined, and is a social as much as a biological or 'age' phenomenon, the lead sentence seems a bit rigid. I don't see an easy fix, but would suggest something like "leading into adulthood (defined legally as the age of majority)". Pincrete (talk) 20:35, 20 April 2018 (UTC)

"Legal adulthood" and "age of majority" are clearer than "adulthood." It's also supported by one of the sources and can be supported by others. I'm not sure if it's supported by the first source. As you know, for humans, adulthood is most commonly defined by age of majority (usually set at age 18), not as reaching puberty. So I don't think we should simply state "adulthood." Adulthood varying aligns with adolescence varying. And, like you noted, the article is clear that the age range for adolescence is not rigid. Some sources do consider it lasting past the teenage years. Further, an 18-year-old who is a legal adult will still be considered an adolescent. I'm not sure that I see much difference between your proposal and what is in the lead now, but I'm not opposed to going with it, except that "leading into adulthood" might be taken to mean that adolescence also exists in adulthood. Again, some sources state that, but adolescence and adulthood are two different concepts. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 22:26, 20 April 2018 (UTC)

As I said, I don't see an easy fix - everbody would agree that adulthood is what follows adolescence - both having 'fuzzy' borders, but legal adulthood (age of majority) is necessarily fixed in each jurisdiction - but varies enormously both in terms of the 'age point', and in terms of legal rights, freedoms and responsibilities granted at that age. Is a i5 year old mother in a country that grants that 'legal right' to a 15-year old, an 'adult', or is she an adolescent in a country that does not think it improper for an adolescent to be married and have children? I don't know the answer to that question, but the implication of linking the end of adolescence too strongly to age of majority has bizarre implications - the 15 year old mother in one country is 'adult', whilst the 21 year old parent elsewhere is 'an adolescent'. Pincrete (talk) 19:18, 26 April 2018 (UTC)

For the vast majority of the world, 18 is legal adulthood. You can see in the Age of majority article that 15 is rarely the age of majority. Anyway, I'm open to other suggestions, but, per WP:Due weight, we have to keep what reliable sources generally state in mind. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 06:38, 27 April 2018 (UTC)

I think the end of adolescence/beginning of adulthood/age of majority all being synonymous would be broken by altering "generally occurs during the period from puberty to legal adulthood (age of majority)." to "occurs during the period from puberty to adulthood. Adulthood is attained legally at the age of majority." This mirrors the MWebster def, which says not that adulthood IS attained at the age of majority, but rather that it is defined legally as such. Pincrete (talk) 08:35, 27 April 2018 (UTC)

Again, I'm not seeing much difference between such a proposal and what is there now. Your proposal is just an extra line. If adulthood for humans is most commonly defined by age of majority, which it is, then why simply state "adulthood," as if anything other than age of majority defines adulthood? If Saudi Arabia defines the age of majority based on physical signs of puberty, it is in the significant minority. And it's safe to say that people generally aren't going to think that age 15 is outside of the adolescent range, whether that adolescent has attained age of majority or not. Merriam-Webster states, "the period from puberty to maturity terminating legally at the age of majority." That is essentially what our lead sentence states since age of majority is legal adulthood. Anyway, going with "generally occurs during the period from puberty to adulthood (age of majority)" is better than your second proposal. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 05:20, 28 April 2018 (UTC)

The wording makes the end of adolescence/achieving adulthood and legal adulthood synonymous - they aren't. Legal adulthood is simply a necessary formal distinction, which varies from place to place. Adolescence and adulthood are fuzzy - and to a degree, subjective terms, dictated by all kinds of behavioural/social norms and expectations. Most dictionaries that I looked at, don't mention age of maj i.r.o. adolescence. The consequence of making them exactly synonymous is to imply that two 16 year olds living in adjacent villages, one in England, the other in Scotland, one is adult, whereas the other remains adolescent for two more years - but most would think that the Scot is still adolescent and only adult in the legal sense. Given the variation in US States and other countries in age of maj., I'm sure even more extreme examples could be found of excessively linking the two concepts (social and legal adulthood). Pincrete (talk) 13:20, 1 May 2018 (UTC)

Except for pointing to the Merriam-Webster source, I don't rely on dictionary sources for material on adolescence, and typically not for other sociology topics either. At the risk of repeating, the only difference in what you are proposing versus what we have is to remove "legal" before "adulthood" and spell out legal adulthood in some other way. I am uncomfortable with stating "adulthood" without making it clear that we mean legal adulthood; I've explained why. I am against adding an extra sentence to note that we mean legal adulthood. Legal adulthood is very much social adulthood, although there will always be people who see 18 and 19-year-olds as kids. It is society that decides what is and isn't an adult. I understand wanting to convey "psychological adulthood," but sources typically don't state that. Simply stating "adulthood" does not solve anything since it takes readers to the Adult article, which speaks of adulthood in terms of biology and legality. Sources do not mean "up to biological adulthood" when speaking of the end of adolescence. They usually mean "up to the time society says you are an adult." And for the vast majority of the world, that is the age of majority. Above, I've addressed the fact that legal adulthood varies, but I also made it clear that age 18 is adulthood for the vast majority of the world. I see no reason to format the lead in a way that gives more weight to the minority viewpoint. And that legal adulthood varies doesn't get around the fact that "legal adulthood" should probably be noted in some way in the very first sentence. Otherwise, we are leaving readers to make up their own minds about what adulthood means, which is not necessary. Do we want a few readers thinking that we mean "up until puberty" even though that makes no sense considering that adolescence encompasses puberty and is often considered by sources to begin with puberty? Even though a person who turns 18 is still an adolescent in most people's eyes, there are so many sources that define adolescence as ages 12 to 18, indicating adolescence ending at age 18 (or 19 depending on how you view it). Adding "legal adulthood" was a way to avoid adding in age ranges, since age ranges vary. Many state "12 to 18." Others go by the teenage years and state "13 to 19." And others extend the age up to 20 or 21.

Your "imply that two 16 year olds living in adjacent villages" example only shows that what is an adolescent or adult may vary in a given a society. It doesn't make "up to the time society says you are an adult" any less true. Again, I can go with the "generally occurs during the period from puberty to adulthood (age of majority)" wording. Notice that wording in the article says generally, which offers leeway when it comes to minority aspects. I noted why your "leading into adulthood" wording is somewhat of an issue. And I don't agree with your second proposal. I could also go with "generally occurs during the period from puberty up to or a few years past legal adulthood." Perhaps should have commas for that so that it instead reads as "up to, or a few years past, legal adulthood." Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 10:50, 3 May 2018 (UTC)

Re:Again, I can go with the "generally occurs during the period from puberty to adulthood (age of majority)" wording. Might I suggest "generally occurs during the period from puberty to adulthood (defined legally as the age of majority)". My only objection to present text is that it makes the end of adolescence/achieving adulthood/legal adulthood into synonyms - which the rest of the lead contradicts, as the first two are 'fuzzy', social/behavioural terms and the third is precisely, (in age-terms), but very variously defined, in different jurisdictions. Pincrete (talk) 19:23, 5 May 2018 (UTC)

Per what I've argued above, I don't see the contradiction you're seeing. But I've already been over it and would rather not repeat. I see no difference between "adulthood (age of majority)" and adulthood "(defined legally as the age of majority)," except for extra words. Anyway, I can compromise and go with it. But why not go with "up to, or a few years past, legal adulthood," given the fact that age of majority can vary and some sources extend their adolescence definition to age 20 or 21? Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 22:40, 6 May 2018 (UTC)

_____

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Semi-protected edit request on 30 April 2018

Adolescent brains are vulnerable and dynamic. They are highly affected by both positive and negative feedback and are susceptible to what others are doing around them. The adolescent brain is wired to engage in behavior that stimulates the reward systems in the brain while the self-control circuits are underdeveloped.

According to Erikson, adolescent identity is based around developmental contextualism. Developmental contextualism is based around the idea that developmental change happens through the interaction between the social context and the individual. In fact, different social and cultural conditions play an important role in the identity formation process. In other words, one’s identity is one’s imprint of his or her social and cultural environment. It is important to know that people have the ability to actively chose, alter and modify their identities to best conform to their societal and cultural context.

Under-developed countries across the world have been impacted by the existence of westernized mass-media. Research has shown that the existence of mass-media has inadvertently influenced the non-industrialized countries by means of financial and technological stability. Mass-media is heavily focused on Westernized Cultures, mainly the United States. Today, consumer goods, television, and societal norms have all stemmed from the American superpower. Other cultural traditions have diminished in response to the formation of a Westernized focus. America has always been idolized for its opportunity and power and the media and marketing strategies have only strengthened it. Other countries have been using media to gain insight into what being American entails. In adolescence, familial and romantic relationships, and sports have all been reshaped due to the influx of technology.

In the Inuit Canadian Arctic cultures, a researcher named Condon observed the clear effects that television had on adolescent boys. The emergence of professional hockey in Canada has changed the traditional cultural beliefs of discouraging awards for personal achievement to young men focusing on competition and fame. The Inuit boys were inspired by the televised professional hockey league and began to stay out for hours at night to practice.

Recent research has shown that in many cultures around the world there has been a stray away from arranged marriages. Teenage women in India have reported that the exposure of westernized cultural beliefs has changed their views in favor of love rather than familial obligations. The introduction of television has changed adolescent behavior from showing no public affection to engaging in a display of intimacy.

References

Add a period.

In the "Sense of Identity" section, the sentence ending "to grasp an understanding of who they are[110]" needs a period. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Zdk2013 (talk • contribs) 04:33, 10 May 2018 (UTC)

Applicability to non-humans

All animals (that I can think of) have a transition from childhood to adulthood. The changes that occur in humans are the same as occurs in other mammals, just with slight differences of timing and scale; e.g. female human breasts start growing in puberty instead of only in response to pregnancy. Humans have a very long lifespan compared to other mammals our size (e.g. compare to a white-tailed deer), with a very long childhood, so our adolescence occurs during our teenage years, while for many other medium-sized mammals, the teens are an almost unobtainable old-age. e.g. Lions tend to live to an old age of about 8-12 years in the wild and up to 22 years in captivity.

A white-tailed deer tends to go through adolescence between 1-2 years of age, with puberty being during its second spring to summer (having been born during its first spring). During his second fall (1.5 years old), a young buck may grow some small antlers and practice rutting with other males his age; it will be very unlikely that he will be able to stake any territory or breed with any does, not while there are fully adult males in the area. Full physical maturity (the end of adolescence) occurs in the next summer for both males and females, with participation in the rut that autumn.

The childhood-to-adult transition in other vertebrates is similar, but often with different physiological changes. For example, amphibians change from water-breathing fish-like forms to smooth-skinned (as in not scaly) adults capable of land-based (and often even tree-based) locomotion. During an insect's complete metamorphosis, the transition from child (larva/caterpillar) to adult as a pupa, often inside a chrysalis, while analogous to adolescence, is quite dissimilar to it and so would not described as such.

While the article concentrates on human adolescence, it should not present this information as if adolescence is a strictly human phenomenon and thus ignore or dismiss this stage of development in other animals.

Nutster (talk) 12:10, 23 July 2018 (UTC)

The definitions in the lead indicate that adolescence terminates at legal adulthood. Hence, adolescence refers to humans.—Anita5192 (talk) 15:38, 23 July 2018 (UTC)

Nutster, the reason I reverted you (followup note is here) is because, like I stated, the whole article is about humans, and so is the vast majority of the literature. It's a concept for humans. It's WP:Undue weight to state "in humans" for one part of the lead, as if any of the sources are talking about (or considering) non-human animals as well, or as if there is an "Other animals" section in the article. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 04:40, 24 July 2018 (UTC)

Also note that the Child article is solely about humans. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 04:42, 24 July 2018 (UTC)

Yes, the Child article does state "is a human being," but that's because it's describing a being (rather than a process) and so it's necessary to note there that we mean humans. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 04:46, 24 July 2018 (UTC)

WikiProject Psychology

There are notices saying this article is of interest to Wikipedia: WikiProject Biology and Wikipedia: WikiProject Sociology - should there is also be a notice saying this article is of interest to Wikipedia: WikiProject Psychology?Vorbee (talk) 08:37, 2 October 2018 (UTC)