
Why Teenagers Act Crazy - tokenadult
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/29/opinion/sunday/why-teenagers-act-crazy.html
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apsec112
"I'm suspicious of this theory that thirteen-year-old kids are intrinsically
messed up. If it's physiological, it should be universal. Are Mongol nomads
all nihilists at thirteen? I've read a lot of history, and I have not seen a
single reference to this supposedly universal fact before the twentieth
century. Teenage apprentices in the Renaissance seem to have been cheerful and
eager. They got in fights and played tricks on one another of course
(Michelangelo had his nose broken by a bully), but they weren't crazy.

As far as I can tell, the concept of the hormone-crazed teenager is coeval
with suburbia. I don't think this is a coincidence. I think teenagers are
driven crazy by the life they're made to lead. Teenage apprentices in the
Renaissance were working dogs. Teenagers now are neurotic lapdogs. Their
craziness is the craziness of the idle everywhere."

[http://www.paulgraham.com/nerds.html](http://www.paulgraham.com/nerds.html)

"Largely because of a quirk of brain development, adolescents, on average,
experience more anxiety and fear and have a harder time learning how not to be
afraid than either children or adults."

This doesn't pass the smell test. Historically, in every culture, young adults
(and especially young men) have _always_ been the big risk-takers; from moving
to a new country, to dealing drugs, to enlisting in the army, to killing
oneself for Allah.

~~~
brc
Risk taking and enlisting in armies or expeditions or whatever is different to
being fearful and crazy (which is what the article is saying).

I prefer the pg explanation - the reason we have messed up teenagers is they
don't have any life direction or things to do.

I was speaking to a relative recently who just made it out of the teenage
years. He is completely normal in every respect - doing well with his
education, socially well adjusted, healthy, polite. But he had purpose and
direction to his life very early on - learned to fly at age 16, got a part
time job at 17, had specific interests that he pursued. He mostly ignored
trying to fit into the social teenage life and this seems to have been a
useful hack in getting around wasting time being an emotional wreck.

I think give any teen a direction - even if it is front-line infantry - and
they don't develop the neurotic self obsession that is common.

Perhaps the reasons that young adults are enlisted in armies and for other
risky activitys is precisely because they lack the experience to judge risk
well, and because societies have found providing them regimented direction is
better than leaving them idle?

~~~
mercer
I grew up in a rather unusual environment where there was a high level of
structure, a clear 'purpose' to life, and a safe, understandable environment
to learn in. I did not really experience adolescence until well into my
twenties when I had moved back into a more standard Western-European way of
life. In my attempts to deal with that I found a support group of people
coming from similar backgrounds, and regardless of their personality they
largely had a similar experience.

Anecdotally that at least seems to support your theory.

------
TheOtherHobbes
My problem with articles like this is that it ignores the fact that adults
frequently act fearful and crazy too - especially when acting collectively
and/or politically.

You wouldn't have politics in its current forms if adult humans were fully
rational and able to treat fear-mongering demagogues with indifference and
contempt instead of adulation.

Perhaps the real difference between adolescence and that kind of adulthood is
the fact that adult craziness is mainstream and socially sanctioned, so it's
not seen as crazy, while teen angst is considered proof of immaturity because
it's not 'responsibly' frightened like adults are.

~~~
vixin
And perhaps your agenda-driven armchair suppositions should be moderated by
some of the hard factual data now coming out from fMRI and other observations.

~~~
ZenPro
Not sure why you have been voted down.

Oh wait, I do. This is Hacker News; where surface _experts_ abound on every
subject and you best not ask for facts, veracity or credibility.

~~~
chunky1994
The reason that comment was voted down is very likely its rather unnecessarily
adversarial tone. It takes very little effort to have the same content and be
polite while expressing it.

~~~
ZenPro
Why should people be nice when calling out armchair scientists for writing
utter unsubstantiated bullshit?

You want nice? Fine. Give everyone the downvote ability.

If the forum is still elitist then expect people to respond adversely to
bullshit.

~~~
TheOtherHobbes
If you want to provide evidence of a surplus of rational evidence-based policy
in national and economic policy and international relations in the last
hundred years or so, I'm sure you can prove my point is bullshit.

But so far all you've done is call me names, which isn't evidence as most
people understand it.

Maybe not so ironically, it's a fine example of the kind of angry rhetoric I
was talking about.

~~~
ZenPro
I never referred to you. Never even linked to your comment directly. Was
talking about HN in general.

I also never asked you for any data. I would suggest learning to read before
you try and form arguments. Like learning to crawl before trying to sprint.

------
revelation
This reeks of 19th and 20th century medicine trying to explain female
"hysteria".

Explaining complex emotional and sociological behavior by rooting it in
handfuls of brain slices is questionable to say the least.

~~~
waps
Exactly. In reality :

Artificial intelligence algorithm acts totally bonkers because you're not
telling it what you want it to do, telling it "it/he/she has to figure it out
for itself". To put it another way : car without steering goes off the road.

If you do what seems to be common in Asian countries, pressuring the kids into
either becoming outstanding students (which sadly means memorizing) or face
homelessness at 18, and remind them constantly, you will get different
results. Not entirely sure it's better though.

Nothing, and I mean nothing, strange about that.

------
jhonovich
A huge factor is the low consequences and low responsibilities required of the
_typical_ teenager.

An adult at work beats up a co-worker? Fired, jail time, lawsuit. Same thing
for a child? Detention or a day of suspension.

Likewise, adults are busy making money to pay for a place to live, food, etc.
Teenagers - it's all free to them.

~~~
VLM
... in white neighborhoods.

Law enforcement against kids is a little more aggressive in non-white areas.

------
wtbob
> The top three killers of teenagers are accidents, homicide and suicide.

Leaving as #4 disease. Are there any other killers in general other than
accidents, homicide, suicide & disease?

And is it at all surprising that disease is rare among the young?

~~~
philwelch
It's been awhile since I've seen a death certificate but as I recall, those
are indeed the four boxes you have to choose from.

------
Frozenlock
Do teenagers really act crazy? When we see children drawing on walls, we don't
say they are crazy, we say they are children.

I don't remember acting crazy in my teens. In fact, I think I'm the same
boring self that I was years ago.

What I think many adults are victim of, is being encapsulated in a little set
of habits and behaviors, with the expectation that everyone else will follow
the same rules.

Thus, when one sees someone old enough to not be a 'child' anymore, it's
expected of them to immediately follow the same habits (thoughtless actions)
then everyone else.

Well, it turns about that many habits are completely non-intuitive (and
perhaps even irrational). For individuals going through the motion for the
first time, they might pause for 2 minutes and try to understand what's going
on, without ending with the same conclusions as everyone else.

If everyone was acting crazy, how would someone not acting like them look
like?

------
chunky1994
My only wish is that articles like this had citations for some of the things
they are saying. (For example: The amygdala develops early compared to the
pre-frontal cortex, how early? At what age?)

I couldn't find any papers on the subject and would be grateful if someone
more familiar with biology would point me to them.

------
VLM
From the article:

"... and make them more fearful adults"

From a game theory perspective is there absolutely anyone in a position of
power in our existing culture who would not benefit directly or indirectly
from a more fearful population? Anyone?

That doesn't prove anything. However, if a problem is found, it does indicate
nothing will be done about it.

Very fox guarding the henhouse-like.

------
MisterMashable
Teenagers act crazy bc biologically they are adults. If we were doing our job
raising kids and not depriving them of real life experiences and honest
learning opportunities, they would be better prepared to channel that amazing
youthful energy, the risk taking, the ability to stay awake longer, learn
faster, compete. They would be starting businesses of their own perhaps even
competing against well established players and occasionally beating them at
their own game. Most would simply become (find out) who they are and find
their place in the world. They would be thinking independently, writing their
own life script. Parents don't like that bc it doesn't validate the choices
they made. Their child might fail in their endeavors thereby making the
parents look bad, God forbid! Universities don't like it bc success is
supposed to depend entirely on whether or not they get paid lots of money.
Governments don't like it bc it would force them to change and adapt.
Corporations hate it bc those kids are supposed to work for THEM for cheap and
buy their CRAP. Did I mention clergy? They don't like it bc some of those kids
might become something they aren't and usher in a new form of spirituality
they don't 'agree with'. Kids (especially teenagers) are DANGEROUS. It's far
better to undereducate them, setup barriers to keep them out of the real
world, and deprive them of all the respect and responsibility accorded to
'read adults'. Then when they become neurotic and act out, claim that's the
real reason kids need to be watched so closely and excluded from participating
in the real world.

