this post was submitted on 11 Aug 2023
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Teenagers Are Adults
(not sure this is an opinion. it's biological fact. but peeps get VERY Angry when I write it)
Physically yes (at least in late teens), mentally no. Their brains have not finished developing.
From a less biological standpoint, they're also still (typically) living with their parents and attending school, largely insulated from the real world.
But it's really the brain development that kills the argument. Any argument about whether a teenager is an adult is almost guaranteed to revolve more around the mental/emotional aspects of adulthood than the physical.
Let's stick to unpopular opinions, not incorrect facts.
"finished developing" is a stupid red herring. Our bodies and brains never stop changing. There is literally no point of "finished developing"
Our brains are largest around age 13. We get adult brains along with our adult bodies during puberty. This is a well-known scientific fact.
If anyone is "insulated from the real world" that was a choice society made. Was it the intentional infantilization of young adults? Keeping them locked out of adult society means they stay mentally children. We created this problem. We can remove it.
Parts of our brains don't finish cooking until your early to mid twenties. By the time you are 18 19 you are mostly cooked but a 16 year old still has a lot of developing to go
Brains don't "finish cooking"... they change continuously throughout our lives (just like our bodies do)
and even if there was some magical point of "finish cooking" that wouldn't make people below that age mentally incompetent.
you are jumping thru tons of illogical hoops in order to justify demeaning and degrading young adults. Stop it.
I think the point is that things like impulse control improve as we get older. This continues to evolve.
'Mature impulse control' would be when the majority of people have reached a level that is acceptable for them to behave 'responsibly'.
I'd argue there are teenagers that have already reached this level, and that there are many 30 year olds left to reach the level, but a best-fit age needs to be decided upon to avoid many with low impulse control being given too much responsibility.
I think I see your point, but I do feel there are aspects that stop this one from being true.
Never before in human history have teenagers been as intensely infantilized as they are in the USA right now.
Look at pre-literate societies too.
The idea that we are children until some time in our early twenties is brand new. Nobody ever considered such ridiculous bullshit until about 20 years ago. Now there are huge numbers of Americans thoroughly convinced of this obviously false, vile, bigoted dogma.
Okay. Let's calm down. You can make your argument without calling it emotional words like 'bullshit'. Talking emotionally makes others less likely to listen to your point. Funnily enough it also makes you appear less mentally mature ๐
Just because it's a new idea doesn't mean it's wrong.
I'd also wager that the 'point of maturity ' is a little high in the US, but not that all teenagers are mature enough to be called 'adults'.
Do people really believe that 20 year olds are children and no one ever in the entire history of the world ever noticed this, and the only people who ever got this right are in the USA in the last 20 years?
That is just astoundingly ridiculous.
Personally, I think most 20 year olds are mature enough to be called adults.
I don't think a 13 year old is.
I agree with most of Europe that around 18 is a sufficient age.
So for me, 18 is the point where people are matute enough on average.
Your first comment suggests you think as soon as a person hits puberty they're mature enough to be called adults. I'm not sure at this point if this is what you meant.
Your subjective opinions on who is "mature" are irrelevant.
Okay, let's say it is. So we can now consider all teenagers as adults. Great.
Nobody is going to say a 13 year old is mature enough to do most of the things we let 25 year olds do.
So whatever word you want to put to it. 'adult' 'mature' 'flimbobblewob', the point still stands that a 13 year old is different to a 25 year old.
13 year olds are also different from 19 year olds
and 13 year olds are different from 7 year olds
I have seen people literally argue that a romantic relationship MUST be abusive because one of the lovers is only 19 and therefore "still a teen" ... the dogma that says teens are children is absolutely false and it is damaging the hell out of young people.
This 4 minute vid explains it pretty well. https://youtu.be/12J1f0Zqaqw
Here is an alternative Piped link(s): https://piped.video/12J1f0Zqaqw
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I'm open-source, check me out at GitHub.
If a child is raised by wolves do they ever become "mature"?
"maturity" is purely subjective. there is no way to measure it. what is perceived as mature varies a lot from culture to culture.
Nature makes us adults through a process called puberty. Society cannot change that. It is biological reality.
arguing semantics to win an argument must make you great at parties and nothing I said was illogical. Just because you feel you are right doesn't automatically make other points illogical.
Simply put your "constantly changing" is as much a hand wave over complex topics as my cooking metaphor and allows for significant development of cognition and decision making.
frontal and parietal cortices aren't developed until mid to late teens with maturation continuing for another decade. Maturation is an important part to consider because just because it's developed doesn't mean you are capable of using it effectively.
The frontal lobe is generally where higher executive functions including emotional regulation, planning, reasoning and problem solving occur.