How have the teenage years changed during the past half century?

How have they stayed the same?How have the teenage years changed during the past half century?
This is a tricky question because a real answer would probably take an entire book to explain, but I will tell you what I know from the past century. Teenage life as we know it began during the industrial revolution when schooling was expanded to include older children, partially because it would take them out of competition for jobs with adults. I'm sure bettering society also had something to do with it as well.


The early 20th, there was the Great Depression and two world wars, so many kid were busy with war effort things, including knitting socks and scarves for soldiers. During the Great Depression, they were starving, especially if they had a single mother as the govt gave more aid to families with a father. Limited technology, so I would imagine lots of time outside and in the cinema. Also jazz clubs and other tom foolery they could get into.





The 50s, tv is around, and rock is just coming into existence. Also, mothers caught in Feminine Mystique (perfect housewife syndrome), which some feel created better kids, some feel it made them sheltered.





60s and 70s, teens pretty angry over their parent's materialistic plastic lifestyle. I think a great deal more protesting than current youth, as well as a greater desire to distance themselves from their parents (think the graduate). More females are going to college, and many counterculture groups are springing up. Also, getting into the real rock music, as well as disco in the 70s. Still cinema is available, and things like roller rinks become popular.





80s- I am at a loss here. I'm guessing the stuff you see in 80s films. Mtv is created in the 80s.





I think from the 90s on you see the increase in technology that has created our short attention spanned culture, teens included. Overall, I would say teens in past spent more time not engrossed in technology, more time outdoors and in social clubs,etc, and prb not as sheltered. More freedom as well with parental agreement. I don't think kids work as hard today as they once did, either.How have the teenage years changed during the past half century?
The 1950's was really when the word ';teenager'; even first came into usage. Before that, there really wasn't much interest in that awkward phase between childhood and adulthood. It was the 50's when books began to be written about teenage behavior and advertisers started to cater especially to this young crowd as consumers. With more technology, as everyone else has said, and also post-WWII prosperity in America, teenagers could afford the comforts that helped them define themselves as a separate entity: radios, cars, make up, new fashionable clothing, etc.
There's more technology so teens can keep in touch with each other more easily than ever. This can lead to new means of deviant behavior, such as cheating or sending sexual messages, that were always around in different forms anyway. I think teens today have less freedom though, to an extent, because in the 60's kids could roam their neighborhoods freely or drive around town and the parents wouldn't worry, but today's parents need to know where their children are at all times or they freak out.
When I was young, the typical American teenager was portrayed as a blue-collar youth. By the late 60's that teenager was depicted as a potential college student.