"At a time and place where people should be getting smarter about everything, they are getting a lot less smart about themselves."

While I was flipping through this month's issue of Psychology Today, I caught an article that described my world in surprising detail. Building on the increasing prevalence of eating disorders among my demographic, the story identified and examined that odd cultural shifts that have been developing within it. I'd post the entire thing, but it's really long. The link is here.

The university may block MTV and VH1, and the students might complain about the Point Loma bubble, but they're still very much products of our society. That my school is Christian mitigates some of the social pressures that are undoubtedly found in its secular counterparts, but of course my classmates are not not wholly immune to the culture at large. According to the article, "Richard Hersh calls it the culture of neglect: kids grow up overly dependent on their peers—'in essence, kids raising kids'—without developing a strong sense of self."

Disregarding the psycho-speak, I can't tell you how painfully apparent I've found this to be. Girls skillfully mask so much and carefully cultivate the personas that they want to project, but, as the article continues, "Fear is the dark heart of contemporary girl culture." I for one often feel like I have no idea of what's going on between my classmates, though it's usually summed up by, "drama."

The article empathized with the fact that I can't always get a straight answer. "[T]he damage goes especially deep because contemporary adolescents 'have no language for reflection,' [Steven Levenkron] says. 'They don't know how to think about hurts. That makes them feel alone in the world.' Anorexics, he contends, have only a very primitive language. 'They can talk your head off about body measurements and fats. It's all transacted with about 12 words.'"

Body image is the main topic of discourse. An assumed norm of perfection compounds the increasing internal competition among girls for academic and social distinction. After all, most liberal arts campuses are split 60-40 along gender lines, making the dating scene that much harder to navigate and ratcheting up the pursuit of thinness. That we all live and eat together constantly creates an astounding self-consciousness, prompting dinner-table questions such as, "Which is healthier for me, cinnamon sugar toast or ice cream?" Girls fast and diet all the time, and even do it together, as the article attests. I passed a girl on the stairs this morning lugging a case of weight-loss shakes back to her dorm.

"The extension of schooling for more young people, especially girls—now the majority of college attendees—requires them to be warehoused together for years with those deliberately selected to share many of the same attributes, constraining exposure to the broader range of humanity." Altogether, the highly unnatural social construct that a dorm is may be ultimately detrimental.

"Missing in action is a rich internal life independent of peers. Hersh sees residential college life perpetuating and intensifying an adolescent pattern of overreliance on peer approval. It also, he says, elevates the body over the mind. And that combination subverts the developmental challenge of finding something far more durable: a stable identity."