6 ms·

Why Teenagers Act Crazy

67 points by tokenadult 12y ago

TheOtherHobbes 12y ago
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.
- Aqueous 12y ago
  The article was saying that teenagers have an elevated amount of fear and anxiety, not that adults don't have fear and anxiety.
- vixin 12y ago
  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 12y ago
    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 12y ago
      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.
      - ianstallings 12y ago
        Why do people here care so much about that? Are we really that thin skinned? It's not like the guy called your mother a whore.
      - ZenPro 12y ago
        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 12y ago
        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.
        deleted 12y ago
        [deleted]
        ZenPro 12y ago
        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.
chunky1994 12y ago
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.
apsec112 12y ago
"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.
- rooster8 12y ago
  The article goes on to answer that two paragraphs later: "You may wonder why, if adolescents have such enhanced capacity for anxiety, they are such novelty seekers and risk takers. It would seem that the two traits are at odds. The answer, in part, is that the brain’s reward center, just like its fear circuit, matures earlier than the prefrontal cortex. That reward center drives much of teenagers’ risky behavior. This behavioral paradox also helps explain why adolescents are particularly prone to injury and trauma. The top three killers of teenagers are accidents, homicide and suicide."
  - apsec112 12y ago
    That both violates Occam's razor - you need to postulate two mechanisms instead of one, with no evidence presented - and common sense. On the battlefield, the brain's "reward center" (whatever that means) certainly isn't being activated. Yet the army doesn't refuse to recruit 20-year-olds because they'll inevitably be paralyzed with terror when the guns start firing. Indeed, 20-year-old men are the first people that every army wants to recruit, in all cultures and all time periods.
jhonovich 12y ago
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 12y ago
  ... in white neighborhoods. Law enforcement against kids is a little more aggressive in non-white areas.
- samirmenon 12y ago
  By citing "low consequences", are you asserting that giving harsher punishments to teenagers would 'correct' their behavior?
revelation 12y ago
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 12y ago
  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.
VLM 12y ago
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.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
MisterMashable 12y ago
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.
Frozenlock 12y ago
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?
grandma 12y ago
Seriously, get this shit off hacker news. What a fucking waste of space. Let's all post wikipedia articles about cross-stitch, and then link to AOL and MSN news articles about growing trends in sweater knitting.
wtbob 12y ago
> 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 12y ago
  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.

67 points by tokenadult 12y ago

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.

Aqueous 12y ago
The article was saying that teenagers have an elevated amount of fear and anxiety, not that adults don't have fear and anxiety.
vixin 12y ago
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 12y ago
  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 12y ago
    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.
    - ianstallings 12y ago
      Why do people here care so much about that? Are we really that thin skinned? It's not like the guy called your mother a whore.
    - ZenPro 12y ago
      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 12y ago
        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.
        deleted 12y ago
        [deleted]
        ZenPro 12y ago
        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.

chunky1994 12y ago

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.

apsec112 12y ago

"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.

rooster8 12y ago
The article goes on to answer that two paragraphs later: "You may wonder why, if adolescents have such enhanced capacity for anxiety, they are such novelty seekers and risk takers. It would seem that the two traits are at odds. The answer, in part, is that the brain’s reward center, just like its fear circuit, matures earlier than the prefrontal cortex. That reward center drives much of teenagers’ risky behavior. This behavioral paradox also helps explain why adolescents are particularly prone to injury and trauma. The top three killers of teenagers are accidents, homicide and suicide."
- apsec112 12y ago
  That both violates Occam's razor - you need to postulate two mechanisms instead of one, with no evidence presented - and common sense. On the battlefield, the brain's "reward center" (whatever that means) certainly isn't being activated. Yet the army doesn't refuse to recruit 20-year-olds because they'll inevitably be paralyzed with terror when the guns start firing. Indeed, 20-year-old men are the first people that every army wants to recruit, in all cultures and all time periods.

jhonovich 12y ago

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 12y ago
... in white neighborhoods. Law enforcement against kids is a little more aggressive in non-white areas.
samirmenon 12y ago
By citing "low consequences", are you asserting that giving harsher punishments to teenagers would 'correct' their behavior?

revelation 12y ago

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 12y ago
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.

VLM 12y ago

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.

deleted 12y ago
[deleted]

MisterMashable 12y ago

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.

Frozenlock 12y ago

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?

grandma 12y ago

Seriously, get this shit off hacker news. What a fucking waste of space. Let's all post wikipedia articles about cross-stitch, and then link to AOL and MSN news articles about growing trends in sweater knitting.

wtbob 12y ago

> 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 12y ago
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.