Teens, Technology, and Transformation | Suzy Cox | TEDxUVU

Summary

The script discusses the challenges of adolescence, noting that teenage behavior—moody, impulsive, and reckless—has been a concern for centuries. It highlights that the adolescent brain is still developing, particularly the frontal lobe responsible for emotional regulation and critical thinking. Today’s teens face longer adolescence due to earlier puberty and delayed brain development, influenced by the digital age. The script advocates for mentorship, technology balance, and understanding, emphasizing that teens need guidance and opportunity to harness their potential and creativity to thrive in an increasingly complex world.

Takeaways

• 📚 Historically, concerns about youth behavior are not new; Plato and other philosophers expressed similar worries centuries ago.
• 🧠 Adolescence is a complex period due to significant hormonal changes and brain development, particularly in the frontal lobes responsible for emotional regulation and critical thinking.
• 🧬 The human brain continues to develop well into a person's twenties, with current estimates suggesting full development between 25 to 35 years old.
• 📉 The onset age of puberty has decreased, leading to a longer period of adolescence compared to previous generations.
• 👥 'Imaginary audience' and 'personal fable' are psychological phenomena that can significantly impact a teenager's behavior and decision-making.
• 📈 The expectations placed on modern teenagers, such as academic performance and extracurricular activities, are higher than ever before.
• 📱 The digital age has amplified the 'imaginary audience' effect, with technology making the perceived judgment of others very real and immediate.
• 🌐 Technology is not inherently detrimental; it's how it's used that matters, and teens can leverage it for creativity, communication, and critical thinking.
• 👨‍🏫 Mentorship is crucial for guiding teenagers to use technology effectively and to explore their potential.
• 🌟 Adolescents have the potential for innovation and problem-solving, as evidenced by young inventors and creators.
• 🤝 It's essential for adults to understand, trust, and support teenagers, providing them with opportunities to grow and develop.

Q & A

What did Plato and the Greek poet Hessed believe about the youth of their time?

Plato and Hessed believed that the youth of their time were disrespectful, disobedient, and reckless, similar to concerns expressed about today's teenagers.

What is one of the main reasons adolescence is considered a difficult time?

Adolescence is a difficult time due to a combination of hormonal changes and the fact that the brain's frontal lobes, responsible for emotional regulation and critical thinking, are not yet fully developed.

What is the current estimate for the age at which most people develop a fully functional adult brain?

Current estimates suggest that most people develop a fully functional adult brain between the ages of 25 to 35.

What is the impact of the digital age on the brains of teenagers?

The digital age seems to have slowed down brain development in teenagers compared to previous generations, possibly due to the constant exposure to digital stimuli and less time for unstructured play and outdoor activities.

What are the 'twin Devils' that impact adolescence?

The 'twin Devils' are the imaginary audience, where teens believe everyone is watching and judging them, and the personal fable, where teens feel their experiences are unique and no one understands them.

How has the presence of technology and social media changed the experience of adolescence?

Technology and social media have made the imaginary audience very real, with the ability to upload videos and share experiences instantly, leading to increased anxiety and depression among adolescents.

What role can mentors play in helping teenagers navigate their adolescent years?

Mentors can guide teenagers by showing them how to use technology for learning, creativity, and higher-order thinking, helping them to develop skills and confidence.

Why is it important for adults to model a technology-life balance for teenagers?

Modeling a technology-life balance shows teenagers the importance of disconnecting to connect with others and the world, promoting healthier relationships and mental well-being.

What is the potential of the adolescent brain that adults should embrace?

The adolescent brain is fluid, flexible, idealistic, bold, and creative, which are qualities that can lead to innovation and problem-solving when properly guided.

How can adults help teenagers to shape their brains in positive ways?

Adults can help by providing opportunities, experiences, and mentorship that encourage learning, creativity, and critical thinking, as well as showing trust and understanding.

What is the role of technology in the potential for teenagers to solve the world's greatest problems?

Technology has the potential to enhance creativity, communication, collaboration, and critical thinking, which can empower teenagers to innovate and contribute to solving global issues.

Outlines

00:00

😟 Are Today's Teenagers Worse Than Ever?

This paragraph opens with a reflection on the perceived challenges of dealing with teenagers today, highlighting their moodiness, rudeness, and poor decision-making. It draws historical parallels to ancient figures like Plato and the poet Hesiod, who similarly lamented the behavior of the youth of their time. Despite a common belief that teenagers are worse today, the script suggests this concern is not unique to modern times. It touches on the effects of adolescence, emphasizing the influence of hormones, but suggests there's more to adolescent behavior than just hormonal changes.

05:02

🧠 The Science Behind Teen Brain Development

This section delves into the development of the human brain, explaining how it matures from back to front. While sensory processing develops early, crucial functions like emotional regulation, critical thinking, and problem-solving, controlled by the brain's frontal lobes, develop later. Contrary to past beliefs that the brain is fully developed by age 20, recent research indicates the brain continues to evolve into the mid-20s to mid-30s. Today's adolescents, growing up in the digital age, may experience slower brain development. This is juxtaposed with earlier puberty, leading to a prolonged period of adolescence lasting up to two decades.

10:02

👀 The Imaginary Audience and Personal Fable

Here, the script introduces two key developmental phenomena that shape the adolescent experience: the 'imaginary audience' (the belief that everyone is constantly watching and judging them) and the 'personal fable' (the belief that no one else has ever experienced what they are going through). These psychological effects heighten the emotional and social challenges of adolescence. The script explains how these factors, combined with intense academic pressures and the omnipresence of digital technology, contribute to the overwhelming anxiety and depression rates in today's teens, underscoring the unique challenges faced by adolescents in the digital age.

💻 The Role of Technology in Modern Adolescence

This paragraph explores the relationship between teenagers and technology, arguing that while technology is often blamed for adolescent problems, it can also be a powerful tool for creativity and learning. It critiques how most teens and their parents primarily use technology for entertainment, rather than for educational or creative purposes. However, some teens are beginning to unlock its potential for innovation—like developing apps or advocating for causes. The script highlights that the issue lies not in the technology itself but in how adults model its use and mentor teens in maximizing its capabilities for growth and learning.

🌱 The Untapped Potential of the Teen Brain

In this section, the script reframes the underdeveloped adolescent brain as a strength rather than a liability. It argues that the lack of full brain development allows teens to be more open-minded, creative, and bold, which is essential for exploring their identities and preparing for adulthood. This flexibility is seen as crucial for adapting to a more complex world. The script suggests that teens need more guidance and opportunities to realize their potential. Adult mentors play a critical role in helping adolescents harness their creativity and innovation by providing support, resources, and modeling positive uses of technology.

🤝 Mentoring Teens Toward Greatness

The final paragraph focuses on the responsibility adults have in nurturing adolescent development. It emphasizes the need for adults to model healthy technology use, engage teens in meaningful learning experiences, and guide them toward using technology for more than just entertainment. The script encourages adults to step up, learn alongside their teens, and trust in their potential. By doing so, it suggests, adults can help teenagers shape their minds in ways that will prepare them to make a positive impact on the world, reaffirming that teens are capable of achieving great things with the right guidance.

Keywords

💡Adolescence

Adolescence refers to the transitional stage of physical and psychological development that generally occurs during the period from puberty to adulthood. In the video, it is highlighted as a challenging and worrisome time due to hormonal changes and brain development. The script discusses how historical figures like Plato also worried about the behavior of youth, suggesting that the struggles of adolescence are not new.

💡Hormones

Hormones are chemical messengers in the body that regulate various functions, including growth, metabolism, and mood. The video script mentions hormones as a significant factor contributing to the emotional and physical changes in teenagers, causing them to act impulsively and feel more intensely.

💡Brain development

Brain development refers to the process by which the brain grows and matures. The script explains that the human brain develops from the back to the front, with the frontal lobes, responsible for emotional regulation and critical thinking, maturing later. This delayed development is crucial for understanding adolescent behavior and decision-making.

💡Frontal lobes

The frontal lobes are the front part of the brain responsible for higher cognitive functions such as decision-making, planning, and regulating emotions. The video emphasizes that these areas are not fully developed in teenagers, leading to impulsive behavior and poor emotional regulation.

💡Puberty

Puberty is the period during which sexual maturity is attained. The script notes a dramatic drop in the average age of onset of puberty to 11 for both genders, which, combined with a delay in brain development, results in a longer period of adolescence.

💡Imaginary audience

The imaginary audience is a psychological phenomenon where teenagers believe everyone is constantly watching and judging them. The video script uses this concept to illustrate the self-consciousness and heightened sensitivity to social evaluation that adolescents experience.

💡Personal fable

The personal fable is the belief that one's experiences and emotions are unique and that no one else can understand them. The video script mentions this concept to explain why teenagers might feel isolated and misunderstood, leading to risky behaviors.

💡Technology

Technology, as discussed in the video, is a double-edged sword for teenagers. It is blamed by some for the decline in adolescent mental health but also has the potential to enhance creativity, communication, and critical thinking. The script challenges the audience to consider how technology can be used positively by teenagers.

💡Mentorship

Mentorship involves a more experienced or knowledgeable person guiding a less experienced one. The video script stresses the importance of mentorship in helping teenagers navigate their developmental challenges and harness the potential of technology for learning and innovation.

💡Cognitive skills

Cognitive skills are the mental abilities an individual uses to process information, solve problems, and think critically. The video script questions the types of cognitive skills that are promoted by standardized testing and suggests that other forms of learning, such as unstructured play, may be more beneficial for brain development.

💡Stress

Stress is a physical or mental tension caused by factors that an individual perceives as threatening or demanding. The video script discusses how the constant stress associated with an 'always on' society can impact adolescent brain development and mental health.

Highlights

Teenagers today exhibit behaviors similar to those noted centuries ago, such as disrespect for elders, reckless decisions, and a sense of entitlement.

Adolescence is a difficult period due to both hormonal changes and the slow development of the brain, particularly the frontal lobes responsible for emotional regulation and critical thinking.

Brain development follows a back-to-front pattern, with sensory processing developing early and emotional regulation and problem-solving abilities coming much later.

The human brain isn't fully developed until around age 25 to 35, and the age of puberty onset has dropped to around 11 years old for both boys and girls, extending the period of adolescence.

Teens today face unique challenges due to the pressures of academic performance, standardized testing, and numerous extracurricular activities.

The rise of digital technology has created an always-on society where the imaginary audience teenagers feel is watching them has become a real audience via social media and mobile devices.

Anxiety and depression rates are rising among adolescents, possibly due to the pressures of digital life and the unrealistic expectations placed on them.

The brain's adaptability means that what teens experience and how they use their time significantly shapes their cognitive development and abilities.

Standardized tests and a lack of creative, unstructured play may hinder the cognitive development of teenagers.

Teens' use of technology is often for entertainment rather than for developing critical thinking or creativity, partly because adults haven't modeled how to use it as a learning tool.

Teens who are exposed to adult mentors and learn to use technology for creative or problem-solving purposes show great potential, such as the teen who developed an app to diagnose brain cancer.

The flexibility of the adolescent brain, while often leading to impulsivity, also allows for creativity, boldness, and innovation.

The delays in brain development may actually help teens adapt to the complexities of modern life by giving them more time to explore and figure out their roles.

Teenagers need guidance and mentorship from adults who understand the potential of their developing minds and the tools at their disposal.

By helping teens balance technology use with creative and critical thinking pursuits, we can empower them to solve some of the world's biggest challenges.

Transcripts

[Music]

what is wrong with

teenagers my gorgeous daughter everyone

they're Moody they're rude they make

really stupid decisions and won't follow

our Sage advice and surely today's

teenagers are worse than they've ever

been in the history of the whole world

right maybe not

a few centuries ago a guy named Plato

lamented what is happening to our young

people they disrespect their Elders they

disobey their parents they ignore the

law they riot in the streets inflamed

with wild Notions their morals are

decaying what is to become of

them and a few years later a the Greek

poet hessed may have said I see no hope

for the future of our people if they are

dependent on the frivolous youth of

today for certainly all youth are

Reckless beyond words when I was young

we were taught to be discreet and

respectful of Elders but the present

youth are exceedingly disrespectful and

impatient of

restraint so it seems we may not be the

first generation to worry about our

adolescence but why why is adolescence

such a difficult and worrisome

time well part of the answer to that

question is obvious hormones that lovely

flow of neurochemistry that makes girls

cry and boys believe they're

Invincible but there's a lot more to it

than

that let's start with the basic nature

of brain development many of you may

have heard that the human brain develops

basically back to front but what does

that really mean well well it means that

processing visual information happens

really early as do auditory processing

and our sensory motor functions

developing a sense of yourself as being

separate from your parents also happens

fairly early around 18 to 24 months

though this search for identity

continues throughout life and plays a

major role in

adolescence and the ability to respond

emotionally that begins very early so

what does that leave for last what brain

functions are typically directed by

those frontal loes of the

brain emotional

regulation critical thinking problem

solving planning for the future

consideration of consequences

hypothetical and abstract thinking

basically everything that makes a fully

functional adult human luckily all of

these functions are online by the time a

child enters High School

right okay well we used to believe that

the human brain was on average fully

developed by about age

20 that would mean it's almost done

wiring up in high school and college

seals the

deal but the more we learn about the

brain the better we understand that it

is never fully developed our brains are

always changing and adapting and

developing new

capabilities but perhaps more

significant for discussion today we've

also realized that the brains of the net

generation this group of kids who have

grown up in the modern digital age seem

to be be developing more slowly than

those of teens from previous years

current estimates suggests that the age

at which most people develop a fully

functional adult brain ranges from about

25 to

35 and conversely the average age of the

onset of puberty has dropping

dramatically it's down to age 11 for

both boys and girls so this means that

children are experiencing adolescence

for two

decades it is truly a miracle that the

boys

survive as painful as it is put yourself

back in your adolescent shoes for a few

minutes and try to understand just how

challenging being a teenager really is

your body and brain are experiencing a

flood of hormones that wreak havoc on

your looks and even more so on your

emotions and unfortunately the part of

your brain that's most heavily involved

in helping you reason through your

emotions and manage your responses is

not yet

operational associated with these

hormonal changes teens experience what I

lovingly call the twin Devils these are

two developmental phenomena that dram

atically impact

adolescence the first the imaginary

audience is a strong belief that

everyone is watching you and judging you

at all

times the second is called the personal

Fable and represents the belief that no

one in the history of the entire world

has ever lived the life you're living

and therefore no one understands you and

what you're going

through in girls this is often manif

ested in conversations with their

mothers that sound something like you

don't know what it's

like meanwhile boys firmly believe that

jumping their dirt bikes over 18

semi-trailers won't kill them because

the laws of physics don't apply to

them so imagine walking around all day

every day your head and body full of

hormones your emotions running a muck

with no guidance from the frontal loes

firmly believing that no one in history

has ever experienced what you

experience so you just have to Fumble

your way

through and everyone is watching you and

judging you as you do it now pile on the

countless expectations that we place on

teenagers today eight different classes

in which you must earn A's weeks of

standardized testing and more

extracurricular activ ities than ever

before finally let me clarify that very

few people in this room fully understand

what it is like to be a teenager in the

digital age I certainly

don't I may have believed that everybody

was watching my mistakes but it probably

wasn't

true but today there's a cell phone in

every pocket and Myriad ways to upload

video to the web in seconds so that

imaginary audience has become very real

and the rates of Child and Adolescent

anxiety and depression are

skyrocketing this understanding of the

reality of adolescence is staggering to

me I am honestly just so impressed that

they can get out of bed in the

morning but I'm also begin to realize

how fully We are failing

them the brain is an amazingly adaptable

organ that physically changes in

response to what we ask to do physically

changes every new thing we learn do or

experience changes the ways in which our

brain cells interact and communicate

with each other effectively changing how

we think and what we are capable

of so as we look at the life of a modern

teenager is it really any wonder that

their development is

delayed what types of cognitive skills

do standardized tests

promote what happens to a child's brain

when she doesn't have time to engage in

Creative unstructured outdoor

play and what is the impact of hours

spent watching online videos or the

constant stress that accompanies our

always on

society we have built this world not

them many in the media have vilified

technology blaming it for the degenerate

state of our adolescence but I firm

believe that this is an old people

problem today's teens have grown up with

technology in their pockets and

unsurprisingly they've generally used it

for

entertainment why would they use it for

anything

else it's not like many of their parents

are actively showing them how to develop

websites make documentaries analyze data

or establish personal learning networks

most of us don't even know how to do

these

things so we use technology the same

things our teens use it for

entertainment and social media it's just

how you use

it and our teens brains certainly aren't

saying you should definitely use your

cell phone as a tool for Learning and

higher order thinking young

man but technology is capable of so much

more it's potential to enhance

creativity communication collaboration

and critical thinking is almost

boundless and some teens are beginning

to discover that

potential they make videos advocate for

social causes invent 3D Braille printers

and literally develop apps that diagnose

brain cancer this young man is 13 years

old some of our greatest Innovations

have been discovered by individuals who

were barely out of high

school so what makes the difference for

those

teens many have been exposed to adult

mentors who showed them what technology

is is capable of but really the secret

lies in that underdeveloped

brain while we often think of it as a

liability causing teens to make poor

decisions and forget to turn in their

homework this lack of development is in

fact

beautiful you see our adult frontal loes

make us afraid they inhibit our

imaginations make us reluctant to try

new things and meet new people and

impose rules on our

actions meanwhile the teen brain is more

fluid and flexible allowing adolescence

to be idealistic bold and creative and

this makes sense adolescence is

preparation for adulthood it's a chance

for children to experiment with their

identities and discover who they want to

become it is in fact their very lack of

development that enables them to be

brave enough to meet the challenges they

face every

day and perhaps the delays we're seeing

in the brains of today's teens are not

entirely a bad

thing as our society has grown more

complex their brains have had to

adapt this delay then gives them time to

explore the world and figure out their

roles within

it what they need what they crave is

guidance

opportunity someone who

understands the tremendous potential of

the Adolescent mind and is willing to

take the time to Mentor

them who Among Us has sat with a

teenager lately and shown him how to

engage in scientific

inquiry showed her how to code an

app and engaged him in studying a topic

that is truly important or asked her

what she thinks we should do to solve

The World's Greatest

problems they have the potential they

have the tools the responsibility lies

with us we are the ones who can provide

the opportunities and experiences that

adolescen need to

flourish but it will require

change we must model what it looks like

to have a technology life balance put

down the cell phone close the computer

and talk with a teenager

one-on-one show them what it looks like

to disconnect to connect

furthermore we have to Mentor teens in

using technology to engage in learning

creativity and higher order thinking and

if we don't know how to do those things

it's no longer okay to accept that we

have to step up and

learn if you don't know where to start

ask your kids and you can learn

together but most

importantly we must stop criticizing

teens as a group and embrace the beauty

of this incredible period of

development yes they're impulsive and

loud and

pimply but they're also tremendously

strong we have to show them that we care

that we understand them and above all

that we trust them to do great

things by doing so we can help teens to

shape their brains in a ways that will

amaze us they will in fact save the

world

just like they've always told us they

would thank

you