Fast Forward by Lauren Greenfield

In Fast Forward, Lauren Attempts to go into a four year journey to analyze the world of L.A youths. In doing so she finds that there are many adolescents and children who admire materialism and money. One thing she also found much in common among teens was the fact of growing up quick. One teenager stated "You grow up really fast when you grow up in L.A. It seems like everyone is in a rush to be an adult. It's not cool to be a kid." She took pictures of a wide diversity of children and teens of all different ages. I understood how she was able to see which child was influenced by what environment by just looking at a picture. She also asked a few questions here and there to hear what they had to say. My favorite was when the little boy commented on how his mothers dresses too young, and that she always has to have a style of dress that hasn't even come out yet. These pictures and interview's were nice in seeing how children not only act, but how they really feel about what is "in" and what is not. I also learned by this how important environment is when it comes to a child's impression of the world. What we see in front of us is what we are going to compare ourselves to and subconciously compete with. If we are shown different values than we rely on happiness not for materialistic things but instead what we learn is supposed to make us happy. There was nothing I didn't understand in this article.

I can relate this article to Raby's discourses. In the storm you have growth of identity and the "sense of self". I believe we all do develop in stages like Erikson ()says but I also believe that our environment has an important role in who we are today. I am a firm believer of nurture vs nature. And Raby's article along with Eriksons makes sense, however, by Greenfields interviews and pictures, society plays an important role on self identity. Maybe if children didn't see what society shows them to the extent it does as so important then maybe they wouldn't have social problems like Raby talks about. This article links social problems with what children see as "in". If a child doesn't fit in then they may act up because they don't fit in. Or they may even do what they need to do (eg commit crime) to get that nice pair of shoes or that 100 dollar bill.For ex one boy said in Lauren's interview "If you are doing a story about growing up in L.A, you have to show money. That's what its all about. He and two friends then held up bills for her to photograph(the bills were 100 dollar bills)" Do you see a social problem here or what?? I do... This leads into Rabys argument on pleasurable consumption how the media shows our children what to wear and whats cool to have. We cant leave out agency, because not everyone ends up the way their environment led them.

I would have to say I can relate this article to Morrison and McMillans article on coming of age with the Internet. In their article they describe the importance of relationships with self,family,real communities and virtual communities. The difference between these two articles is simply the absence of the direct concepts of the effects of the Internet. They relate however in terms of environment and media effecting the identity of our children's youth. Computers and being on the Internet is what a child sees more important these days then playing sports for example. The child is influenced by family and friends which impacts the self. Whatever they see to be the "in" thing (which is exposed through media and internet) then this can as a result effect the child's morals, values, and can in turn have a negative effect on the child's self image and identity.