Are teens really stupid? No, they’re not. Teenagers just haven’t fully developed their brains. According to Dobbs’ “Beautiful Brains”, the reason teenagers these days are doing dangerous and impulsive things is because their brains are still developing. They’re still in the process of becoming adults. However, the qualities of “angst, idiocy, and haste; impulsiveness, selfishness, and reckless bumbling” (Dobbs), shouldn’t be associated with adolescence. These traits are merely the ones that we recognize easiest because these are there the reasons that teenagers annoy us or concern us. However, they aren’t all bad. These traits are reasons why teenagers are so eager to make friends, take risks, and look for something usual or surprising. Their thirsts for attention and rewards are fueled by such traits, but to teenagers, what they get out of these dangerous behaviors are worth the risk; unlike adults, teens weigh risk and reward differently, which may be the reason why adults view teens as impulsive, risky, and immature.
I have to agree with Dobbs on the points that were made in the article. Adults don’t always see eye to eye with teenagers. Adults tend to be more conservative with their actions: over-weighing the risks, while under-weighing the rewards. The stereotype for teenagers is impulsive and immature. Immaturity, however, can be viewed as being risky. Typically, people who seem to have no consideration for the dangers or consequences of one’s actions can be viewed as being immature, but also risky. The teenage brain is still developing and is undergoing “upgrade”, but like Dobbs says in the article, “if we smartened up sooner, we’d end up dumber.” Life is all about learning from your mistakes and improving yourself through this process. If we “smartened” up sooner, where would we learn these valuable lessons from? We never really stop learning in life, but through the mistakes we’ve made growing up, we can offer advice to our children, and hopefully they could learn something from it too.