According to Erikson’s theory, Jessica is at the identity vs role confusion stage She is not fully developed in this stage This is attributed to the fact that she is confused about her career life and social relations. Also, she is not committed to her studies that will eventually lead to her career and attainment of a full-time job. This is evident from the fact that she reports missing classes and does not care about her schooling. Role confusion is evident from her inability to physically socialise with friends and make friends face-to-face, her lack of preparation for her future, and lack of self-identity leading to the lack of direction. Jessica is conflicted in this stage, as she has not fully discovered self, and is not assertive enough to make decisions that favour her well-being. Her choice to excessively use her phone is to meet her friend’s expectations, inhibiting her well-being. Her conflicted ability to effectively resolve identity and role confusion is supplemented by her mother’s constant pressure to find a job and contribute to the household expenses.
Jessica is underdeveloped in the formal operation stage by Piaget. This is because, she hypothesises of her excessive phone use situation, and all the reasons that surround the behaviour, but she cannot effectively come up with a concrete decision to favour her and keep her friendships. She feels that her excessive phone use is detrimental to her and she can easily stop the behaviour, but she chooses to keep it to avoid losing her friendships. Also, she feels that her friends will abandon her if she chooses to stop using her phone excessively since she is acquainted with them through the phone. According to Piaget, an 11year and older individual develops to creating solutions and solving problems from hypothesizing and using symbols. This creates a pool of possibilities and numerous ways to effectively solve problems.
Also, according to Marcia’s identity status theory, Jessica’s identity status is Moratorium. Marcia holds that an individual’s sense of identity is influenced mainly by the choices and commitment formulated, regarding their personal and social attributes. Jessica is exploring different concepts in an attempt to create her identity, but she has not committed to any. This is evident from the fact that she wants to get a full-time job, has completed certificate II in retail and is pursuing certificate III in the same, but she still hasn’t found a full-time job that interests her in the same field, and she is not attending her lecturers fully. Also, she is exploring tons of friendships on the internet, but she cannot commit to them for longer than three weeks. She has also loosened her friendship with her only high school friend, as they rarely see each other.
Elkind agrees with Piaget, by stating that adolescents’ behaviour is often egocentric. Jessica is classified in Elkind’s egocentric model that holds that adolescents feel like they are being watched because their egocentrism drives their need to feel important to everybody else, in the same way, they are to themselves. Jessica acknowledges that she can stop the excessive use of her phone, but at the same time she prefers to continue over stopping the behaviour as she feels that she owes that to her friends. Further, she states that she chooses not to stop as she does not want to be abandoned by her friends. Her excessive phone use is enabled by her notion that it is her responsibility to stay on phone to connect with friends. Elkind’s imaginary audience influences her choice to continue the behaviour as she thinks that every little thing she does is being watched by her peers and other people.
In Bowlby’s attachment theory, individuals develop to form relationships and friendships based on their child-mother relationship. Jessica’s method of creating friendships and attachment is insecure since she barely talks with her close friend from high school, and, when out in social groups with friends, she barely talks face to face but stays on her phone. She has the recurrent need to create friends as she forms online friendships that last between two to three weeks. She also wants to have attention from all her friends. This may be influenced by the fact that there is barely any communication with her mother who is her only primary caregiver and her father also left her, and the family at a very early age of four. Further, she has a constant need to create friends and chooses to use her phone constantly to avoid abandonment by friends.
Metacognition is the knowledge each individual possesses of their cognition process. This then translates to how these processes influence social behaviour and learning cognition processes of other people. development of Metacognition helps individuals gain confidence in the activities and thoughts they wish to employ. Subsequently, this leads to proper decision making and even problem-solving skills. Jessica’s development is not fully achieved by her metacognition. This is because, her decision-making skills and problem-solving skills are inefficient, and she is not confident in her future choices. She dwells on her thoughts on how her behaviour will affect her friendships, without considering the consequences it has on herself.
Clinical assessment
Jessica’s orientation is good and is cooperative in the session. According to the Beck Depressive Questionnaire, she filled, the results indicated a state of mild depression. Jessica lost interest in the drama that she once enjoyed during her high school years and does not wish to pursue it further. Besides, she does not communicate physically most of the times with friends as she spends most of the times with her phone. The communication with her mother, who is her primary caregiver is rarely there and is encouraged by her excessive use of the phone and her mother’s job.
There is evidence of obsessive-compulsive tendencies with Jessica as she keeps checking her phone after every thirty minutes and this inhibits her physical social relationships. Jessica uses her phone when out with her friends instead of engaging herself in face-to-face interactions. Additionally, she barely communicates with her mother after she is home after work as she is always on her phone. She attributes her behaviour to the fear of losing friends and abandonment.
She is also an identity crisis and this is inhibiting her physical social relationships. This is because, she does not make a decision based on how well they will influence her life, instead, her reason of using her phone excessively is to maintain and create friendships that last up to three weeks. She has not quite decided on her career in retail as she has not found a full-time job that interests her despites having completed her Certificate II in retail. Also, her mother’s constant pressure to find her job is a contributing stressor to her crisis. Jessica has elements of low self-esteem and self-worth since she only thinks that her connections are based on her online presence, and when with friends, she barely talks to them physically. With this, she results in obsessive tendencies of the use of her phone.
environment
Jessica’s excessive use of the phone may be a risk factor, a promotive factor according to the resilience model, towards stress. This is because, attachments and relationships that she forms are insecure, lasting up to three weeks, and this may influence stress and feelings of low self-worth. Her internet use may also affect her in numerous other ways. These include; unhealthy physical social relationships, lack of inspiration to pursue her career, and other unhealthy behaviour. Her behaviour of excessive phone use has contributed to her lack of interest to attend her all her classes, and this may affect her overall school performance.
According to the social ranking theory, individuals compete on social media with other users in reaching a common goal. This also is as a result of the fear of missing out. Jessica feels obligated to always stay online, and she even goes to the extent of borrowing or stealing a phone from friends if hers is not available. The most common applications she uses are photo editor, music recognition and other public sites. As an adolescent, many of them compete with their in posting pictures and getting likes, and this could be influencing her excessive use of the phone and the need to stay connected to friends. The feelings of underachieving these goals could lead to depressive states and psychological stress.
According to the models of resilience, vulnerability is the heightened possibility of a negative occurrence because of the exposure to risk. Jessica’s excessive phone behaviour may be influenced by the environment that she is exposed in. This environment is characterised by, friends who do not encourage her to physically participate in social functions, instead, they let her use the phone on such occasions, friends who enable her behaviour by lending her phones to visit the internet, and lack of proper physical communication at home that contributes to her excessive use of the phone.
Another contributing promotive risk factor is the lack of enough parental support. Most of the time, her mother, who is the only primary provider is working two-part time jobs. This creates a void in the parental support for Jessica. Besides，when her mother comes back from work and is always tired, and this results in a few conversations between the two, enabling her behaviour to use the phone. Her father has not been there since she was four years old.
The protective model of the resilience theory is also at play in Jessica’s social environment. First, from the referral made by her mother, it shows that there is an external resource of parental support willing to help change her excessive behaviour. Her mother is also interested to help her change her behaviour as she even attends presentations about the topic of excessive phone usage.
conclusion
From Jessica’s assessment on social and cognitive development, the excessive use of her phone is affecting her development and wellbeing. There has also been an indication of mild depression from the Beck Depressive questionnaire test. This has been evident in her inability to make proper decisions that affect herself, but she bases her decisions on creating and maintaining friendships. Consequently, this has inhibited her ability to physically interact with friends, and to the end loss of close friendships. Her excessive use of the phone has created a negative behaviour of even stilling to satisfy the need to stay online. Besides, it has also contributed to her behaviour of missing classes and concentration in finding a full-time job. Her enabling factors are her home conditions, inadequate personal development and her friends.
Jessica should be engaged in talk therapy, through cognitive behavioural therapy to help avert her distorted thinking and empower her with skills to solve problems effectively. This therapy will also help her to effectively respond to her obsessive behaviour without fuelling her compulsive use of her phone. Another form of therapy that would help avert her behaviour and compulsion on phone usage would be exposure and response prevention to repeatedly expose her to the behaviour, and challenging herself to desist from her compulsive behaviour.
Jessica’s mother should be counselled to properly guide her to constantly assess her on her development using the proper screening materials, appropriate ratings, and reviews. She should also be encouraged to support Jessica on the journey to stop the excessive behaviour, by encouraging her. This will help create a healthy relationship between Jessica and her mother and this may positively influence her ability to physically interact with friends.
Jessica should also be encouraged to join support groups and engage in face to face interactions to promote physical interactions and healthy relationships. This will limit the time she spends on the phone as she is involved in physical activities. This will also help her develop physical interests that will help manage her mild depressive symptoms. The resilience theory should also be used to assess her strengths; assets and resources that will ensure that her phone usage is contributing to her proper development and achievements.
Her school should also be encouraged to offer life skill training that will empower Jessica and her peers to gain effective skills to solve problems and develop skills to promote social interaction. This will lead to the formation of a healthy relationship and optimal development.