Erik Erikson's Stages of Human Development

Erik Erikson's Stages of Human Development

Stages	Basic Conflict	Important Events	Outcome
Infancy (birth to 1 year)	Trust vs. Mistrust	Feeding	Children develop a sense of trust when caregivers provide reliabilty, care, and affection. A lack of this will lead to mistrust.
Early Childhood (1 to 2 years)	Autonomy vs. Shame and Doubt	Toilet Training	Children need to develop a sense of personal control over physical skills and a sense of independence. Success leads to feelings of autonomy, failure results in feelings of shame and doubt.
Preschool (3 to 5 years)	Initiative vs. Guilt	Exploration	Children need to begin asserting control and power over the environment. Success in this stage leads to a sense of purpose. Children who try to exert too much power experience disapproval, resulting in a sense of guilt.
School Age (6 to puberty)	Industry vs. Inferiority	School	Children need to cope with new social and academic demands. Success leads to a sense of competence, while failure results in feelings of inferiority.
Adolescence (10 to 20 years)	Identity vs. Role Confusion	Social Relationships	Teens need to develop a sense of self and personal identity. Success leads to an ability to stay true to yourself, while failure leads to role confusion and a weak sense of self.
Young Adulthood (20 to 30 years)	Intimacy vs. Isolation	Relationships	Young adults need to form intimate, loving relationships with other people. Success leads to strong relationships, while failure results in loneliness and isolation.
Middle Adulthood (40 to 50 years	Generativity vs. Stagnation	Work and Parenthood	Adults need to create or nurture things that will outlast them, often by having children or creating a positive change that benefits other people. Success leads to feelings of usefulness and accomplishment, while failure results in shallow involvement in the world.
Maturity(60 to death)	Ego Integrity vs. Despair	Reflection on Life	Older adults need to look back on life and feel a sense of fulfillment. Success at this stage leads to feelings of wisdom, while failure results in regret, bitterness, and despair.

 I see myself at stage 5 the "Adolescence (10-20 years)" because I am asking myself the questions:

Who am I?
Who do I want to be?

I am a student who is still confused about what I actually see myself doing with my life. I am at the stage in my life where I am starting to develop a sense of who I am and what I want to do with my future. I am not quite at the next stage yet because I am not looking for someone to settle down with yet, nor am I thinking about children. I am content with the stage that I am at because I know that soon enough I will find who I am and I will be able to progress onto the next stage in my life.

Digital Technology

Digital Technology

   Technology in today's society plays a major role in schools today. Many children learn through using technology, many companies actually have programs for students to use on computers or smart phones. My life personally would be much more complex if I didn't use technology every single day. I create all my school assignments on a computer, I even write most of my quizzes on a computer. Communication has also advanced since digital technology has became the norm of social relations. It is much more efficient to text or send an email to someone then it is to even call anymore. The future generations are going to be so technologically advanced that they will work completely from some kind of digital technology. The military even has a building that is filled with army video games where children shoot people and play as if they are at war. It is to interest kids and teach them more about the army, but is it actually acceptable considering the dangerous implications that follow war? Teachers and parents need to teach children that video games, such as the army ones, are not real and that war is much more serious and intense then the games make it out to be. Another critical  aspect that we must look at when discussing digital technology is multitasking. Multitasking is the performance of multiple tasks at one time. The younger generations consume their lives with multitasking, they are always doing more then one thing at a time whether it be on the computer and cellphone at the same time to listening to music while writing and essay AND on facebook ALLLLLLLL at the same time! Crazy! But are we as good at multitasking as we really think? Researchers found that students arn't actually gaining all the information that they are reading because they are not completely focused on what there reading because they are so trying to focus on 4 different things at one time. I will admit I multitask on a regular basis especially when it comes to using more then one digital technology. I find myself texting while doing my homework and I will have the TV on in the background. Distracting much? Yes, but we all do it!