Forever Young: The 'Teen-Aging' of Modern Culture

Judith E. Franchuk is a librarian in the Cameron Library at the
University of Alberta.

Marcel Danesi, a professor of semiotics and communication theory at the
University of Toronto, presents an interesting assessment of current
Western culture’s blind acceptance of what some may say amounts to a
marketing scheme in which profits are optimized by promising a fountain
of youth in the form of permanent “teenagehood.” Based on interviews
with more than 200 adolescents and parents, Danesi aims to “unmask the
cultural sources” of the “teen-aging” of society.

Beginning with a brief history of how adolescence has become a serious
social problem, Danesi explores how the media and big business have
learned to use society’s obsession with youth to break down
traditional sources of guidance and wisdom and replace them with experts
and pop icons that promise the answers to society’s ills in the form
of disposable lifestyles.

Unlike some authors, however, who criticize society and offer no
solutions, Danesi suggests three things Western culture can do to
restore society: return to a view of the family as one of the
foundations for a healthy society; present adolescence and the family
with dignity; and discard the “social-scientific” view of
adolescence.

Danesi states that this book has been written for a general audience.
However, it would also be useful for undergraduates exploring social
issues such as trends in society or the role of symbols in society.
Danesi offers many ideas that, perhaps because of the length and scope
of the book, are summarily presented and/or do not, within the work,
have fully developed connections to his thesis. Each idea, however, is
rich with possibilities for further development in controversial
directions. This book challenges every reader to look at his or her life
space from the perspective of the “teen-aging” of society.