Teenager’s obsession/concern with status in society

Every age plays a crucial role in molding a person. Whether it is the childhood that shapes the personal habits of every person based on their learning or whether it is the teenage which carves the personality in every individual based on their experiences and their ability to adapt and change. Each age has its own perks and twirls and while we may not realize it at that point in time, every experience, every encounter constructs a chapter in the story of our lives.

• The Age of Innocence

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The most interesting yet difficult yet exuberant age is the teenage. Teenage is a whirlpool of an age, where sometimes everything makes sense but most of the time nothing does, there are times when teenagers feel full of hope yet there are moments when they are the most hopeless and depressed being to walk on earth.

• The emotional turmoil

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Teenage is that particular age when the maximum emotional turmoil is experienced. As you get to be exposed to the real world, you experience a change in emotions like never before. There are days when family seems to be least understanding institution you can look up to therefore you treasure your friends. Then there are days when friends do not seem to be returning you the same kind of love so family feels like a temple. There is a constant emotional roller coaster ride that teenagers seem to be riding. To them, nothing seems to be working to be working their way. To the world, all their ways seem to be wrong and unacceptable.

• The Double Six on the Dice

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Though this age might seem, and to some extent it indeed is, the most memorable and the most challenging age, it must be admitted that teenagers go through a rough time. While everybody loves a six on the dice, they also sometimes have to face and accept the double six that has the equal probability of occurrence. In order to deal with the emotional, psychological and physical changes that teenagers are going through they usually turn to the materialistic things and start getting conscious of their status.
There are three basic status divisions

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-Socioeconomic class A: the elite class, which is also the richest and comprises of capitalists mostly.

-Socioeconomic class B: the middle class, that works for the capitalists and is well educated but not filthy rich.

-Socioeconomic class C. the lower class, which comprises of least educated, least wealthy individuals who work in order to make their ends meet.

1. There are various factors that lead on to this unnecessary concern and those factors have to be identified in order to be eliminated or corrected.

• Peer pressure: Teenagers greatly depend on their friends and look up to them as a source of support, inspiration and affection. In order to develop a sense of belonging, teenagers often try to match each other’s status. They become immensely concerned about the lifestyle for those friends that belong to a higher class and vigorously try and fit in with them by changing their own lifestyle. This boosts their self-confidence and gives them the sense of belonging they had been hoping to achieve.

• Brand war
  
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Teenagers have been the greatest victims of the brand war. They have been targeted the most often and have indirectly been constantly reminded that they need branded bags, shoes, dresses and electronics, without which they cannot consider themselves of a high status. This is the reason why most of the teenagers are always found judging and evaluating other people on the brands they use.

• Self-Image
  
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  A deteriorated self-image is what is leading many teenagers to change themselves, unnecessarily. They constantly find faults in their looks and their personality because they make the mistake of comparing themselves to the celebrities and other influential people who belong to the upper class.
  What these kids do not know is that those people go through countless painful surgeries, hours of makeup, numerous people working on them and countless editing effects that make them look the way they look. They also do not realize that changing in order to resemble them won’t take them to their favorite celebrity’s status.
  It is the hard work and the drive to success they need to conduct so as to reach that status.

The issue is that teenagers think that having expensive/branded items, friends who belong to a higher status and looks that can conceal their shortcomings are what they need the most.
They need to be guided, through social media, through these influential celebrities and especially by their families, that they have potential for far more respectable goals which they can set for themselves and achieve in order to **form their individual identity