Not All Who Wander Are Lost

Not really news: Scientists discover that "teenagers fail to see the consequences" of their actions. "Teenagers take more risks, because they do not foresee the consequences as adults do," says cognitive scientist Abigail Baird.

Not at all news: Not everyone is an educator. On the whole, society tends to forget that teen brains are just as gawky as their bodies.

Much more interesting: Using this info, reports this week's New Scientist, "several bodies, including the American Medical Association and American Psychiatric Association, have submitted evidence in a test case before the US Supreme Court arguing against the death penalty for juveniles."

Totally unsurprising: Mention of this article in fark ignores the test case, instead focuses on ridiculing New Scientist for "reporting" the adolescent development no-brainer...which, in turn, only confirms the mental age of fark community members (self included) as totally adolescent.

Serendipitous coincidence: Minutes after starting this post, blogexplosion brought me Flaming Teenaged, which brings us "the red hottest news on rampaging teens."

Internal query of the day: "Red hottest" couldn't possibly be grammatically correct, could it?

Comments:

"Scientists discover that "teenagers fail to see the consequences" of their actions. "Teenagers take more risks, because they do not foresee the consequences as adults do," says cognitive scientist Abigail Baird."

Hmm . . I don't agree. As a teenager, I was always fully conscious of the consequences of my actions ; extremely so.

I guess I'm just "unique" in that respect.

# posted by

Anonymous : 9:07 AM, December 06, 2004

Hmm . . I don't agree. As a teenager, I was always fully conscious of the consequences of my actions ; extremely so.The quoted bits (and title) of the article is actually somewhat misleading. The psych. tests given suggested that it merely takes longer for younger folks to weigh and recognize possible factors, risks, and stakes given an option.

I would suggest, though, that OVER sensitivity to consequences is a hallmark of adolescence to many of us. That said, such oversensitivity is rarely, if ever, comprehensive. In other words, sometimes our fears about what could go wrong are at the forefront of our thinking as adolescents, but that doesn't mean we're afraid of the right things, or all of them...I might even suggest that such strong fears can easily overwhelm comprehensive thinking, which might explain part of why adolescents take longer (on average) to weigh risks and options.

That said...

I guess I'm just "unique" in that respect.

I note that the article also points out that there is no hard-and-fast age where this changes. Like all development, some develop faster than others, and some are more mature at an earlier age.

# posted by

boyhowdy : 10:54 AM, December 06, 2004