Summary Of Elizabeth Kolbert's The Terrible Teens

In the feature article "The terrible Teens”, the author, Elizabeth Kolbert, explains her opinion about adolescents’ brains to be under development, leading them to be more slow-witted than adults. In order to prove this point, many experiments have been conducted; a team of researchers at Temple University gathered eighty-six mice and placed them in Plexiglas cages, either singly or in groups of three. They collected the results, which showed that, half of the test mice, which were four weeks old,qualifying them as adolescents, out drink their elders,which were the other half consisting of twelve-week-old adults. This experiment can be related to human adolescents behavior in such a way that teenagers are more eager to engage themselves in

People groan as they find out I teach high school, voicing their lack of understanding the teenagers in their own lives. Admittedly, I love the mind of teenagers and quickly tell people of my joy to teach this age group. After reading The Primal Teen by Barbara Strauch, I now have language and terms for what I see happen in my classroom. I find myself reflecting on my own years of adolescence as I learn how to navigate this period in their lives on the seemingly forgotten self-spectrum. As I read about the changes of the teen brain, from developing prefrontal lobes to the growth of dendrites and the pruning process to the lack of impulse control, I am often more impressed with the exuberance of the teenage brain.

Steinberg uses an increase in gas and a decreases in brakes as an example. Abigail Baird, a brain researcher, suggests that adolescence is much like a second toddler hood. The out-of-control actions that occur during adolescence are actually very critical to pre-adult learning. The neurotransmitter dopamine paired with the pre-frontal cortex is what makes risk-taking come out in the adolescence. According to B.J. Casey, areas of the brain involved with reward processing are much more active in teens than in younger children or adults. The teen brain reacts differently than adults when making decisions with the help of the amygdala and the insula. Adults rely on these parts of the brain, while studies have shown that teens insulae weren’t as active as adults while being asked “good or bad idea” questions. It took teens twice as much time to answer these questions. They were showing a frontal lobe response which impairs your decision making causing accidents and deaths all the time. The prefrontal cortex doesn’t begin to mature until the age of 25 which enables us to be better at inhibiting influential

Early-developing adolescents are also more vulnerable to making risky decisions because their physical and brain changes are happening on widely divergent tracks. Their physical development may garner invitations and opportunities with older teens and young adults (parties, drinking, etc.) just as changes in the brain trigger the desire for thrill-seeking and risk-taking. However, their brains are not fully developed, so the urge to experiment is not balanced by the capacity to make sound judgments (p.10).

Many psychologists have stated as to how adolescences’ brains have not fully matured, which indicates that children are not fully responsible for their actions. This may be due to their risk taking behaviour and their irresponsible behaviours. (Zuckerman 2006)

As adolescents go through puberty and increase in hormones, their mind changes, and their understanding changes. The teen brain is in constant development and the brain grows rapidly during adolescent years into the age of 20s.They themselves are unaware of what they are feeling, which is why it is difficult for anyone else to understand them. As the world begins to change around them, teens look to drugs, substance abuse, violence, sexual relations, self-harm, and other unhealthy habits.

He argues that past research has been centering only on rationality and maturity of adolescence by just looking at the brain itself. The author notes that psychological sidestepping research on cognition and behavior, brain study vaguely attributes conceptualized social incidents to any age-related trend and statistical pattern in neuro-processing. Furthermore, it is noted in this article that psychological research is in contrast to the proposition which asserts that risk taking among adolescents is a special occurrence. Everybody takes risks and always has a right to take these

An adolescent’s brain is not yet done developing and has not reached the same stage as the brain of an adult. Adolescents should be able to mature in a safe environment, not behind the bars of a prison cell. In her TED Talk, The Mysterious Workings of the Adolescent Brain, Sarah-Jayne Blakemore, a Professor of Cognitive Neuroscience at the Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience at University College London, stated, “Medial prefrontal cortex activity in social cognition tasks decreases during adolescence.” (Blakemore) The prefrontal cortex is the cerebral cortex in the frontal lobe of the brain that regulates cognitive behavior, personality, decision making, and social behavior. It is ultimately the conscious decision maker of the body. Blakemore

Adolescent Behavior in Alice Monro’s “An Ounce of Cure” “Adolescence is society's permission slip for combining physical maturity with psychological irresponsibility.” -Terri Apter Why do adolescents behave the way they do? Adolescent behavior is something everyone experiences. Adolescents feel the need to experiment and experience all they can – to become their own person and find out who they truly are on their own, often rebelling in the process.

The teenage brain is a work in progress. It is just like any body part of a child, it is still growing. The brain acts differently in the teenage years. It is stuck in a battle between impetuous desires and reasonable thinking. Studies have shown that his phase of the brain is needed and helpful to teenagers so that they can understand the world by themselves. Teenagers are influenced easily by peer and emotional pressure. A chemical called dopamine is responsible for this because it is produced when we get a pleasant feeling. High Dopamine levels are attained in adolescence years and this is why they have impulsive desires. The main leader of the brain is the prefrontal cortex. The qualities of this brain part increase over time with age.

Dr. Jensen discussed development and how the brain, the most complex organ in the body, is the last to mature and for most species (including humans) it connects from the back to front. Therefore, the prefrontal cortex is the last thing that “connects” and even then, the cells must become insulated to more quickly carry information. There are miles of connections in the brain and without this insulation, teenagers cannot make decisions as quickly as adults. As Dr. Jensen stated, teenagers physically look like adults, and are therefore expected to act like adults. However, their brain is not fully developed,

The first article that I read was called “The Teen Brain: It's Just Not Grown Up Yet” written by Richard Knox. This article explains why teenagers think the way they do and how their brain really works. What I found interesting about this article is that it explains how teenagers brain chemistry is tuned to be responsive to everything in their environment which makes it easier for them to acquire knowledge. Unfortunately, this brain chemistry also has a negative side to it. Since teenagers can learn very easily, it is also easy for them to get addicted to substances because “Addiction has been shown to be essentially a form of 'learning’.” Also, it explained that teenagers have a partially connected frontal lobe. Since their frontal l9be is

According to Broderick, P. C., & Blewitt, P. (2015), some adolescence think they are an adult once they have reach puberty but their brain will not be fully developed until they reach the approximate age of 25. The brain of all individual contains neurotransmitters which send pleasure signals. At certain stages of a person’s growth these neurotransmitters produce an increased amount of dopamine, which depletes as the individual reaches the adulthood status (Broderick, P. C., & Blewitt, P. 2015). According to Brooks (2015), being an adolescent is one of the most challenging times in a child’s life because they go through hormone, mood and physical changes. The adolescences’ brain has not developed fully until they are in their late twenties. Hormones are being produced and often times the adolescent’s body may look like

The teen brain, quite an interesting thing isn’t it? In fact so interesting that brain researchers have created parta way to scan teenager’s brains to see how they work. As well as to observe why we make such impulsive decisions & take in risky behavior. Turns out there is a reason that we’re careless impulsive decision makers, it’s because our thoughts process though our libic system in our brains. Due to not having our pre-frontal cortex benefits we become impulsive.

Teenagers – how they behave, communicate, and take risks- are, sometimes, grossly misinterpreted. Things have changed over time to affect how teenagers behave. This misunderstanding is not always ubiquitous to young adults of our time. More people need to focus not on what adolescents are thinking, but how they are thinking. Unfortunately, the brain of an average teenager is not, yet, fully developed.