Week 7: Presentation Preparation!
Hi Everyone, I hope you all are having a great week! This week, I am continuing to focus on the first draft of my presentation, since my AP Research Presentation is coming up soon. Luckily, I am almost done with my data analysis, so I should be able to add those results to my project soon.
When I started this project, one of the biggest things that stood out to me was the rapidly declining mental health among the population ages 18-25. A lot of the research I was finding talked about how technology and the advancements around us were isolating people, leading to a mental health crisis among young adults. Specifically, one article, titled “The new life stage of emerging adulthood at ages 18–29 years: implications for mental health,” talked about how the changing world was affecting psychological well-being in the newest population of young adults.
The study, by Jeffrey J. Arnett, Rita Žukauskienė, & Kazumi Sugimura, looked at the new prevalent adult demographic, of ages 18-29, and evaluated their mental health as a result of the factors around them, including individualism-collectivism orientations. In recent decades, people have become more individualistic due to earlier marriage and children, going to college or other higher education. Since these large life changes are happening at a younger and younger rate, this means younger people are trying to find their demographic, but are struggling with the damage this lack of fitting in can do to self-esteem. The study also took a look at Japan, a previously collectivistic country. For example, in the most recent century, Japanese culture has become more and more individualistic, through new technological advancements and global diffusion of Western ideals. More and more individuals aged 18-29 are beginning to find partners earlier or delay marriage to focus on career goals, presenting a sharp contrast from the country’s existing cultural values, which promoted community-arranged marriages traditional household values. This increase in individualism was found to be correlated with a decline in mental health in Japan. The suicide rate for that age group in Japan is the leading cause of death for people aged 20-39, and is higher than many other age ranges. This high suicide rate is due in part to the rapid individualism, which has caused many young adults to feel isolated by those around them.
So, knowing these statistics and global changes, I wanted to observe how the technologically advancing world would impact the mental health of adolescents, as the current adolescents (aged 14-17) are experiencing a world that is unlike the generations that came before them. Hopefully, when I finish my data analysis, I will be able to observe a statistically significant correlation between individualism or collectivism, and psychological wellbeing. Thank you, and see you next week!
Comments:
All viewpoints are welcome but profane, threatening, disrespectful, or harassing comments will not be tolerated and are subject to moderation up to, and including, full deletion.