Not Quite Adults: Why 20-Somethings Are Choosing a Slower Path to Adulthood, and Why It’s Good for Everyone

by Settersten, Richard; Ray, Barbara E.

  Families have not picked up the slack. Fewer families discuss politics at home today—another source of information and understanding about civic life and the political system. One-third of young people say their parents discuss politics with them at home less than once a year or never. But young people in families that talk politics are more likely to be engaged and to vote, and vice versa.

  Joining Networks, Not Marches

  The one iconic image of the mid-twentieth century was the protest. From the 1968 debacle in Chicago to the protests spanning from Berkeley to Antioch to Washington, the “flower power” and antiwar generation of the 1960s took to the streets at a scale rarely seen before. In hindsight, these protests were powerful symbols of how that generation approached politics: head-on, take no prisoners, brook no compromise. By contrast, this latest generation has co-opted the old forms and refitted them to suit their world.

  “I don’t want to go ‘rah, rah, rah,’ in some robotic way,” says Luke, the gay twenty-five-year-old Ivy League graduate. Luke votes, he gives money, and he reads everything he can online about a candidate. He is, in other words, an atypical young adult. Yet he’s “not much of the protesting type. I protested for my first time after Proposition 8 [the ballot measure that prevented gay marriage in California]. It reinforced the reason that I’m not the protester type—which is that the people who organize protests are people who support the right answer for the wrong reasons. You had some guy with the microphone comparing George Bush to Hitler. I mean, just wildly inaccurate comparisons and not responsible. And it just doesn’t seem to get you very far.”

  Luke is repulsed by the radical fringe that seems to appear at most protests. Like many in his generation, he leans more toward a willingness to compromise and find coalitions. A hunting lobby, for example, would be the last group that Constance Flanagan’s daughter, a vegetarian, would associate with, but because of her passion for saving natural resources, hunters offer a natural ally in advocating for the preservation of forests and other natural lands. They might want the forests and rivers left pristine for different reasons, but they can work together toward their common goal.

  W. Lance Bennett, professor of political science and communication, and director of the Center for Communication and Civic Engagement at the University of Washington, sees a clash between the old and new models of citizenship. He argues that traditional forms of civic involvement—such as protesting, contacting elected officials, and taking an interest in news and public affairs—that adults from prior generations identify as the pillars of a strong civic life are “brittle conceptions of proper citizenship.”12 They fail to speak to the interests of youth, and they fail to take into account the more modern forms of involvement.

  The old model of the “dutiful citizen” is inching toward irrelevance for this generation, replaced by what Bennett calls the “actualizing citizen.” Their parents and grandparents voted or protested because that was what dutiful citizens did. This sense of obligation was fostered in traditional social groups such as churches, the PTA, the Elks Club, and unions, as well as in the classroom. And when jobs were steady and long lasting, they, too, created a sense of loyalty and obligation. Belonging to a group imparted, or imposed, an identity. Group norms developed; subtle peer pressure encouraged members to be good citizens and to carry their groups’ interests to the voting booths. In turn, politicians listened to a “constituency” and the group’s members felt they were being heard in the process. With a few exceptions, largely among the religious right, strong membership-based identities are becoming a thing of the past.

  Looser and broader social networks—often online—have sprung up in their place. Not only is the digital world offering new forms of communication and outreach, but it is also altering our conceptions of what membership and commitment mean. Groups no longer impose interests on their members. Rather, individuals choose their interests in a bottom-up process based on recommendations from trusted peers, often through loose social networking ties, such as Facebook, Twitter, or blogs. An actualizing citizen has a diminished sense of obligation to the government but a higher sense of individual purpose. Voting is often less meaningful than choosing to buy “green” products or opting to volunteer.

  Young adults today find authoritative, one-way messages or demands suspicious. They don’t like to feel managed, packaged, and manipulated. Years of being bombarded by consumerist culture have left them with a keen sense of smell for contrived messages. Perhaps that is why only one in five high school seniors in the Network’s analysis of Monitoring the Future survey said they had or would attend a protest in 2002.13

  Today, there are broader forms of protest, like using cell phones and social networks to launch “smart mobs” (in which digital networks are used to coordinate and take immediate, and often spontaneous, group action) or using blogs or Facebook pages to report on news that is overlooked or downplayed in the mainstream media. Theirs are more organic efforts, from the bottom up, more egalitarian and less hierarchical. This generation holds fast to the belief that working together in groups can make a difference, but these groups are smaller, personalized, and more diffuse.

  John McCain learned the hard way how much young people suspect canned and overly managed messages from the top. Back in 2000, McCain made a foray into the digital world to reach the youth vote. He held a press conference using the fancy tool of videoconferencing and asked young attendees to email him questions, which he would answer. The event was publicized as one of the first live, interactive political events. McCain was set up for success, but he failed to realize one critical factor. Politicians cannot simply use digital tools as some sort of signal to youth that they “get it.” They must take the next step. McCain accepted 250 emailed questions, and he answered only 12. He made the further, fatal mistake of sticking to a script and speaking “on message,” rather than spontaneously engaging with the crowd. The response was tepid. His audience saw through the spin and manipulation, and checked out.14

  One reason Obama was so successful in reaching young people was that not only did his message of hope, change, and “we can do it together” resonate with youth, but he also allowed young people to create and pass along their version of his message to their own networks, and in the process become trusted ambassadors of a larger campaign message among their peers. They had a hand in the process, even if the message was tightly controlled by the Obama team.

  Cause of the Moment

  This new model of involvement is more evident in volunteering. In one of the “good news” stories of the past few decades, young people today are volunteering at rates that are higher than prior generations. Of course, some of this altruism satisfies the service learning requirements that have been added by many high schools, and some of it pads college applications or résumés. Whatever the reason for this surge of volunteerism, though, the end result is the same: More youths are giving back to their communities. As many as four out of five American high school seniors report that they volunteer. In 2008, nearly 40 percent of first-year college students and 60 percent of seniors reported doing community service or volunteer work during college, and 15 percent of seniors said they planned to continue after graduation. Most young people who do community service or volunteer work, however, do so once a month or less.15 Nevertheless, the fact that they continue to volunteer after the obligation to do so in high school has ended is hopeful. It signals a first step on a lifelong commitment to political and civic life.

  In volunteering, the Network has found that young people choose the causes they support to reflect their interests and identities. They also want to be involved in projects and volunteer efforts that have immediate and visible results and that feel authentic and genuine to them. These factors count far more to them than do institutions and group loyalties.16 In fact, young people aren’t likely to be “lifers” in supporting particular groups or organizations. Their support often ends once their work is over, and then they move on to new causes and
commitments. Change is part of the game. Still, the experience of volunteering can be a gateway to lifetime involvement.

  Consider Jacquie. Jacquie grew up in a tough neighborhood in Chicago. She understands how quickly life on the streets can interrupt dreams, and she wanted to find a way to prevent those costly disruptions for her friends and classmates. As part of her service learning requirement in high school, a counselor suggested she explore the Student Political Action Committee (SPAC). The two issues the SPAC was focusing on at the time were implementing mandatory comprehensive sex education and restricting military recruitment in high schools. Jacquie felt strongly about both issues. She knew how sexually active her classmates were, and she also felt that the military too often recruited young black men to fight wars they had no business fighting. “Recruiters have had so much freedom in high schools,” she says, “to come in and talk to students without the permission of their parents and without the permission of the student. I thought it was an infringement of privacy, not to mention that these are minors, and they’re not supposed to be taken advantage of like that while they’re in high school.”

  Jacquie and her fellow SPAC members eventually lobbied at the state capital and won their case for creating a mandatory comprehensive sex education program in high schools across the city. Her excitement is still palpable. “I think all of us had something to do with that! The fact that so many students, and so many parents and teachers, were involved: I think that’s what made it successful.” They also fought to change the practices in Chicago public high schools so that students had to be explicitly informed of their right to sign an “opt-out” letter preventing their personal information from being distributed to military recruiters. Just before she graduated, the district altered its policy to meet the SPAC’s requests.

  These immediate and visible successes swept Jacquie up into political life. “I don’t really know how to explain it. I have to be actively involved in any community that I’m part of. I can’t just like sit around and watch things happen,” she says.

  When the candidacy of Barack Obama, a hometown favorite, was just taking off, Jacquie knew she had to become involved. She found a youth activist organization, and she and students from across the Chicago area traveled to Iowa to campaign in the primaries. They also attended workshops about the political process and social change. Jacquie later campaigned in Chicago and worked as an election judge during the primaries. But it was that moment in the ballot box—her very first—when all her volunteer efforts came to fruition. As an African American eighteen-year-old voting for the first black president, Jacquie suddenly understood the profundity of the moment. “I couldn’t believe that it had happened, that all the work we had put into the campaign had actually paid off. And it just shows that citizens, when they come together, they can make anything happen.”

  Sadly, Jacquie is unusual for the type of neighborhood she comes from, which lacks the kind of connectors that hook kids into a political life. Just as inequities limit the opportunities for jobs and positive role models in tough inner-city neighborhoods, kids in these neighborhoods have unequal opportunities to get involved and challenge those inequalities. Communities like Jacquie’s are often isolated politically with few ties to mainstream politicians. People are preoccupied with putting food on the table, with little time to volunteer after a commute home from work on three different buses. As a result, the number of vibrant civic associations in these areas has dwindled and disappeared.

  Yet despite these odds, a growing groundswell is helping young people like Jacquie make a difference. “More activists are beginning to work with kids in the middle of Detroit or inner-city Philadelphia,” says Flanagan, “and help to see that their frustrations are not an individual issue but a collective issue—and something you can act on politically. They show youth who to talk to, help them find out who is in charge, help them express their demands. Often they don’t win, but that’s okay. They see how it works and that they can have a voice.” As Jacquie learned, the act of demanding accountability from one’s political representatives, and seeing change as a result, can be empowering.

  Political activism is not the only type of involvement for young people. Many volunteer in more traditional ways, such as spending time on a fund-raising drive, reading to the blind, or delivering Meals on Wheels. Austin, who is living with his parents at age twenty-nine in the St. Paul neighborhood where he grew up, volunteers for two community organizations. He works full-time but manages to put in several hours each week at the local community center swimming pool, where he manages a small team of volunteers who run the swim programs. He began the job in high school and has stayed with it ever since. He also volunteers as a committee member on the local Boy Scout troop one night a week. He has been volunteering with the Scouts since he was eighteen.

  Austin echoes many others on the rewards of volunteering when he says, “Whether you’re volunteering as a tutor at school, or like me, as a Boy Scout leader, it makes people’s lives different. It makes your life more fulfilling. And that probably makes you a happier person, which probably makes you better to be around. I think volunteering can be frustrating at times, when people don’t appreciate what you’re doing. But I think it’s meaningful. You make their lives, hopefully, one little bit better each week. And it makes your community better.” For Austin, the immediacy of his actions is rewarding. He sees results every day. He is not trying to change the world; he simply gains satisfaction from helping the young boys in his neighborhood gain the chance to succeed.

  Austin remains involved in his community today for a variety of reasons, but one of them is likely because he became connected early on through volunteering. Many studies have shown that such an early connection opens up young people’s vistas, makes them less individualistic, and deepens their ties to their community, which they carry with them down the road. Flanagan finds that among at-risk youth, in particular, volunteering and service learning opportunities help to widen their networks of crucial “loose” ties to the outside world. In her study of a nationally representative group of more than three thousand young people in their twenties, she finds that those who volunteered during high school were twice as likely to say they had at least one adult they could turn to for advice than those who did not. Six in ten who volunteered said that they were exposed to people of different races and income levels. Engaging in service before age eighteen was related to positive civic values and behaviors in the young adult years. Young people who had engaged in service were also more likely to be well integrated into work or school—and in some cases they carry that ethos of “doing good” with them into the workforce. Their experiences as volunteers shape both the kinds of jobs they desire or choose, and the employers for whom they will work.

  Clearly, not all young adults are the disconnected, apathetic generation they are made out to be. Many young people have found a connection to larger causes and ideas beyond the tiny, solipsistic orbit of self. Not only does this outward-looking approach signal a commitment to community ideals, but it is also a clear marker of adulthood. Being responsible for part of a larger world is exactly what is meant, after all, with the “oh grow up” demand.

  Pick a Cause, Any Cause

  Young people like Austin give their time to causes they believe in. From Save Darfur to Go Green, causes reflect the new model for participation that has captured the imagination of this generation. Causes combine two elements of the “actualizing citizen” that Bennett envisions. They are interest-driven groups with a peer-to-peer network, and they tap into the digital tools that young adults use daily. This move to cause-based activism reflects an overriding shift from institutions to individuals, said Tom Watson, author of CauseWired, in an interview. When the government or a lumbering organization is viewed as ineffective, young adults bypass it and develop a more direct route to help. Often these efforts take the form of a “flash cause,” an instant reaction to an immediate problem, like the massive response to Hurricane Katrina
, or the One Million Voices against FARC (the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia) campaign that quickly became a worldwide movement. As a result of viral marketing—passing news in ever-expanding webs of contact—thousands of protesters took to the streets worldwide to rally against the organization that the Colombian government considers a terrorist group.

  The primary tool that brings young citizens together to make something happen is the Internet. Causes abound online today, and with an ease never before realized, small groups of like-minded people can come together in a mass movement.

  “If you think about the Internet more broadly,” says Jonathan, “it’s an amazing tool to bring people together who care passionately about something—even something esoteric like saving crocodiles in South America. That easy ability to find people online who are committed—it sure beats putting up a sign in the library. That’s where the power is, in getting people who are very devoted to small causes together, people who would otherwise have trouble finding each other, and to quickly disseminate information to that group.”

  According to Tom Watson, “Young people today [are] very oriented to causes because of how they’ve grown up—with constant access to news and information and with their own ideas, at least for the more elite kids. It’s a Do-It-Yourself culture. They train themselves, and then they talk about it constantly. Because of the social network, and because of how much they live and work virtually, they’re more open about what they’re doing.”

  The immediacy of the result and the ability to find and tailor a cause to one’s interests rather than sending money to a largely faceless charity is a huge draw for this generation. With a click on a Facebook “causes” page or an email or a tweet on a Twitter account, young adults can join a cause that rings true to them. Kiva.org is a good example of this individualized approach, employing the immediacy that this generation so loves. Kiva allows individuals to interact directly with the person they are giving money to. The “micro-lending” website combines small donations into a pool, which it then distributes to individuals on the receiving end. The individuals are real people, with pictures and life stories for all to read. Rather than give to a large, anonymous organization, donors get to help living, breathing human beings. The money buys chickens or a piece of equipment—small-scale contributions that make a world of difference. Most important for this generation, it offers an immediacy that feels good; they can see what they have done, and they feel connected to the cause.