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“When my son comes home from school, he lounges in the living room with his friends. They’re all seniors in high school who should be thinking about what to do next,” a mother in Alaska told me.

“But all they talk about is the latest videos on YouTube, computer gadgets, and what they are going to do on the weekend.”

In my own interviews with Alaskan high school seniors, whether they lived in Anchorage, Fairbanks, or in rural communities, I came across so many directionless young people like her son.

Most of them were guys.

The young women were more likely to have plans — go to college and become a social worker, a doctor, a job where they could help people.

At first, I thought that the girls might just be saying what they thought adults like me wanted to hear. But the girls were more likely to have taken practical steps toward fulfilling their goals, like sending in their college applications and talking to parents and other adults about how you got where they wanted to go.

Only about 20 percent of today’s youth have developed a purpose in life, finds William Damon, a professor at Stanford University and Director of the Stanford Center on Adolescence. He reports his new research in his 2008 book, “The Path to Purpose.”

In interviews and surveys with 1,200 adolescents and young adults in urban and rural communities, he identifies four groups of young people:

The Disengaged: About 25 percent of the young people expressed views like a student named Matt. “I don’t try to have long term goals. I don’t think too far in the future.”

“You can’t control the future, so why bother?” said another boy. “I just want to have a good time.”

The Dreamers: About 25 percent of the young people wanted to become stars in film, theater, television or sports or had other ideas about fantastic careers. Sara, for example, wanted to make “important movies, like, I want to make a documentary about the double standards that girls and women face.”

But Sara has no idea of how competitive the film industry is or what practical steps she needed to take to get into the industry and make documentaries good enough so people will want to watch them.

The Dabblers: Jessica, 27 years old, has dabbled in a lot of different activities, but she is committed to none. She is drifting, like 31 percent of the young people interviewed.

“Everything I’ve been doing my whole life has been for someone else — my parents, teachers, coaches, everyone but me.”

The Engaged: Casey, 20 years old, is the part-time manager of a coffee bar. She knows who she is and what is important to her. “My family is top priority for me.” Faith is another priority, and a wellspring of her belief that work should express a spiritual purpose.

Like the 20 percent of the young people in this category, Casey has a sharp sense of mission. “I want to teach. I want to be the best teacher I can be.” Her passion is teaching history and making history relevant to students’ lives, rather than just telling them to read Chapter 1 and answer the questions on a worksheet.

I know what Damon is getting at, but he isn’t taking something important into account — how long young people now take to grow up and figure things out.

“Emerging adulthood” is what some sociologists call this new life stage. Young people need time and experience to figure out what is right for them.

Damon is on to something, though, when he argues that “a sense of purpose” is crucial to well-being at any age. Studies of aging show that having a sense of purpose predicts better health and more contentment.

Studies of happiness show that people feel at their peak (an emotion that psychologists call “flow”) when they are engaged in something they find absorbing, challenging and compelling, especially something that makes a contribution.

Writing this column always puts me in flow. I’ve got a sense of purpose — to make research interesting to you.