Is There Anything Worse Than Being A Teen?

Science, why are teenagers so stupid?

Our brains have networks of neurons that weigh the costs and benefits of potential actions. Together these networks calculate how valuable things are and how far we’ll go to get them, making judgments in hundredths of a second, far from our conscious awareness. Recent research reveals that teen brains go awry because they weigh those consequences in peculiar ways…. The rush of hormones at puberty helps drive the reward-system network toward maturity, but those hormones do nothing to speed up the cognitive control network. Instead, cognitive control slowly matures through childhood, adolescence, and into early adulthood. Until it catches up, teenagers are stuck with strong responses to rewards without much of a compensating response to the associated risks.

Um, this sounds exactly right. God, do you remember how awful it was being a teenager? You could not PAY ME ENOUGH to go back. Especially these days, with teens now being vulnerable to “Facebook depression,” an affliction “more painful than sitting alone in a crowded school cafeteria or other real-life encounters that can make kids feel down.” The next time you are tempted to feel sorry for yourself — and, sure, there is plenty to feel sorry about — just remember that at least you are not a teenager. (If you are a teenager all I can tell you is that if you manage to get through it the rewards are more than ample. At least for about ten years or so. After that it all starts falling to shit again, plus you’ve built up a deep well of regrets, and also you’re carrying around some extra weight and you don’t move as quickly as you used to and everything hurts all the time and some days you feel like you’re never going to stop crying. But you’re legal to drink, so it’s kind of a draw. Anyway, teenager, it’ll be okay, I promise. Do not let them scare you with the “Facebook depression” or “Twitter terror” or whatever else they try to turn the basic angst of being human into some kind of diagnosable condition. Just keep it together and all the suffering you’re doing now will be repaid handsomely. For a while. Also, keep reading this website, you’re really helping our aggregate demographics.) Things may seem hopeless (I am talking to the old people again now), but at the very least you can go to a bar, get drunk, pick someone up and take them home and do sex to them and however briefly alleviate the pain of existence. Plus, you no longer have to take Morrissey lyrics seriously. So, really, it could be much worse.