Students' Responses to the following: Imagine if someone was able to “look into the mind of a teenager”, which one or combination of the following ideas comes to mind: social media, family, school, makeup/appearance, friends, cell phones or something else.
"When looking into the mind of a teen most people would typically talk about how things have an influence on the children of tomorrow. In our day and age, almost everybody owns a smart device, and a lot of times people use them to keep in touch with friends, contact family and make everyone know what they've been up to. Some students use this in malicious ways to make fun of or tease other children but in doing this they affect the child, it's not as if they are making innocent jokes. The child's feelings are actually being hurt which can cause a child to change either their behavior or their attitude towards the rest of the world."
Rohan
"When I think about someone "looking into the mind of a teen", the first thing that comes to mind is friends and cell phones. During the teens years, people often have many friends and that is who they want to spend most of their time with. They know the person or group of people understand them, plus they have the same age and are close to thinking the same things. Teens often want to spend every day with their friends most of their time with the people who are the same age as them. Also, teens, love their cell phones so it is something they will always have by them at all time."
Kevin
“I feel like looking into my generation as a whole you see social media, and technology and very stupid things in our minds. Individually we could be bright intelligent and very mature but you will never know a particular teenagers train of thought. We are all different and live in an age where we do whatever we want because of the progression our predecessors have given us. Personally, my mind is very wild but mellow too. I think thoughts of bettering the black community, music, women, the Qu'ran, and my mind is full of twists and turns but I am definitely nothing you expect. One would not expect anything you see in my head or the rest of my generation's head.”
Lance
“"I would say the cell phone, it covers social media in it as well. When we talk about a teenage kid, we all definitely think about cell phones first in our mind. Out of 100% of the teenage kids, 78% of them carries a cell phone with them. This has eventually become a need as well as a want of this generation. Teenagers use cell phones to chat, call or communicate with each other through this kind of device. It helps them to stay connected to the outer world of how is it going outside of their circle with the help of social media"
Sabat
“When I think about someone "looking into the mind of a teen", appearance and friends come to mind. I say this because, in the eyes of a teenager, those are the only things we actually care about, aside from school and cell phones. Appearance sets the social status for teens. For example, if your "outfit is trash" (your clothing doesn't look good) then your social status is low, but if your "outfit is legit" (your clothing looks nice) then your social status would be high. Your choice of clothing doesn't necessarily give you friends. Likewise just because your fit is legit and everybody likes your supreme jacket doesn't mean they're your friends, it just means your noticed. Appearance gets you noticed and every teen wants to be noticed, everyone wants to be a "celeb". Also friends especially in high school, you need someone to talk to and talk about people too.”
Shantiece
"When I think about someone "looking into the mind of a teen" the first thing that comes to my mind is social media, makeup/appearance, and cell phones. Social media comes to mind because teens today stay on social media. Now we have Snapchat, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and more. Teens today stay on social media posting pics, talking about people, planning stuff and more. Makeup and appearance also come to mind because teen girls focus on makeup and looking good for the school. As a teen girl, I know how much it means to look good and how much time girls spend to get right and look good before they walk out the house. Teens spend all their time on their phones and talking to other people so that is why when most people think about teens not only me they think about cell phones."
Kiara W.
"Social media, cell phones, and appearance come to mind. Social media is the "hot spot" of the teen generation today. Instagram, Snapchat, Twitter and everything else pretty much "takes over" the lives of teen minds. Using their cell phones, a post, video, or picture can be made public in an instant. This is where appearance comes into play. Pictures being posted on social media accounts gets the attention of other people or their "followers". Some teens view their follower account as an achievement. To impress these followers and get more "likes" or "retweets/reposts", a teen may enhance their image or appearance. For example, makeup, photo filters and certain poses can be used by some people to get more likes on their posts."
Afia