Campbell in the NYT

Renowned author, expert on narcissism, professor and head of the department of psychology Keith Campbell took the pages of the New York Times recently to discuss societal changes that might be impacting how young people enter, or don't enter, adulthood:

Certainly, many young people are working hard getting advanced degrees, or living with their parents to save money so they can successfully launch into adulthood. This is a rational response to the challenging economic climate. And it isn’t a radical new development. In some ways it is similar to young men in the 1890s putting off marriage until their late twenties so they could support a family. 



More troubling, though, is the possibility that adulthood is simply being ignored by a good number of young people. Adulthood is increasingly seen as a lifestyle option – I can take up adult responsibilities and put away childish things, or I can just pick up an Xbox and decide not to start a career or have a committed adult relationship. Carl Jung talked about the psychology of the puer aeternus, or eternal youth, but the show "Portlandia" captured the cultural shift best with the phrase, “where young people go to retire.” It’s one thing to take a few years to find a career or put off marriage until one is mature; it’s quite another to just decide not to grow up at all. 

Your humble blog host can and will speak to the unconventional entrance into adulthood. Quite a bit is made of getting jobs/married/settled in the usual ways, paths that are increasingly out of the question for many people. This is difficult enough to unpack from an economic standpoint, even without disparaging those who choose video games over other, more pressing concerns. They deserve some grief for sure, but these underlying cultural shifts need to be further unpacked, not conflated. 

As for the unconventional route, there's a reason people choose the tried-and-true. But as these become less accessible to more people, look for more misshapen forms of adulthood to become the norm. Great job, Dr. Campbell, contributing to what should be an important national discussion.

Image: young adults graphic via.