The Teen Brain: It's Just Not Grown Up

Words: 804
Pages: 4
Open Document
“Maturity is often more absurd than youth and very frequently is most unjust to youth” -Thomas Jefferson. Maturity is a convoluted subject. Many people perceive maturity as something you age into, while others interpret it as something that is gained from experience. An important question many people ask is, what determines maturity? Do you hit a certain age and become mature, or do you gain it through experience? Many sources point age as being the major determinate.

In life we expect people of certain age groups to act a specific way. You commonly hear the term “act your own age,” but is there actually a reason for that? In the article, The Teen Brain: It’s Just Not Grown Up Yet, by Richard Knox, it describes how the brain isn’t fully …show more content…
The article goes on to say, “‘It’s the part of the brain that says: “Is this a good idea? What is the consequence of this action?”’” (Knox). This perfectly explains how because of the lack of development in the frontal lobe, a teen can not fully be mature enough to make …show more content…
However, there is even more evidence. At one point it gives the same point that The Teen Brain: It’s Just Not Grown Up Yet stated which is that the frontal lobe isn’t fully connected and that is affects judgment. “The frontal lobes of the brain which are responsible for high level reasoning and decision making aren’t fully mature until the early 20s…” (Elmore). This gives even more support for the fact that maturity comes through age. One argument against this could be that people can choose to make good decisions, and choose to be mature. As Ruth Chang, from How to Make Hard Choices, says, “When we choose between options that are on par, we can do something really rather remarkable.” Even though the choices we make determine who we will become, they don’t dictate how mature we are. An example of this is written in the book The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger. “...and then I yelled at the top of my goddamn voice, ‘Goodnight, ya morons!’” (Salinger). That when Holden chose to leave Pencey Prep, which is an immature choice. Later on in the book he is on a train when he meets the mother of one of his classmates. “You take somebody’s mother, all they want to hear about is what a hot-shot their son is.” (Salinger 56). In this moment Holden could have chose to be a jerk and tell her what her child was actually like, but he was polite enough to give the mother what she wanted to hear. The
Show More

Related Documents: The Teen Brain: It's Just Not Grown Up

The Teen Brain Analysis

The immature brain and the mature brain show great differences in their physical forms. These differences determine the way their host acts and thinks. In "The Teen Brain: It’s Just Not Grown Up Yet" text, Richard Knox explains, “To begin with, she says, a crucial part of the brain—the frontal lobes—are not fully connected.” This means that without the fully connected frontal lobes, which controls the decision making and personality, teens can often make bad decisions and often come out as self-centered…

Words 910 - Pages 4

Article Review Of A Article On Severe Stress Affects Their Brains

“Severe stress hurts children’s brains, hurts hippocampus, study shows.” Krista Conger Stanford Report. March, 2007. http://news.stanford.edu/news/2007/march7/med-carrion-030707.html In this article, Victor Carrion did a study on children and how stress affects their brains. He studied 15 children from the ages of 7-13 that were suffering from PTSD for a 12-18 month period to see how they cope with stress and who copes better. In this study, they found that kids with higher cortisol levels (a…

Words 460 - Pages 2

Inside The Teenage Brain Analysis

Inside the Teenage Brain Notes: A growth spurt in the frontal cortex right before puberty. Brain most vulnerable. At 6, the brain is starting to grow it’s many branches. Adolescence years are extremely risky for teens. Pruning shapes the future. Frontal cortex is not fully grown until you reach the age of 25. The frontal cortex makes decisions and knowing the difference between right and wrong. Use it or lose it principle. What branch the teen is using will survive, those not used will die…

Words 689 - Pages 3

Teen Brain Is Drawn To Risk

gathered suggests that a teenager’s brain isn’t developed until later in life, making decisions difficult. Many teens may agree with this statement as they might have not thought out the consequences completely, such as in the love story Romeo and Juliet, where the two get married in secret then commit suicide as a result of not being able to be together. Considering different views and sources, the teenage brain is incapable of making good decisions since the brain is physically drawn to risk and decision…

Words 1115 - Pages 5

Ap Lang Arguementitive Essay

only what we believe, but also who we want to be and why. To a typical adult, they seem like simple stuff to figure out, but it's not. I will first say why I can't decide on what I want to become, and then I will say what I hypothetically want to be at this point in life. So why are these 3 decisions so difficult for a teen? Scientifically it is a fairly easy question, “teenagers are retarded” states my role model and a student at Harvard and…

Words 533 - Pages 3

Should Juveniles Be Charged Essay

decisions. Teens are not allowed to drink, drive, nor can they sign their own parental consent; therefore, they are not capable of fully being responsible adults. Teens are not mature until they reach nearly the age 20. They lack reasoning and judgment because their cerebellum hasn’t fully grown. Most troubled teens are a product of their environment in which they were raised upon. Some were abused, and therefore are acting out the only way they know how. There a lot of things that teens aren’t allowed…

Words 2322 - Pages 10

Drug And Alcohol Dependency Affects Personal Health

Addiction to drugs or alcohol can bring side effects of liver failure, strokes, brain damage, and damage your immune system. Some of the worst effects of substance abuse aren't even health related, loss of employment, relationships either romantic or familiar, financial trouble and risky sexual behavior. These are some causes and effects…

Words 863 - Pages 4

Essay on Marijuana: good or bad

could also be put into butter then baked into cooking and other pastries, plus you can make it into a tea. After having the ingredient that creates the “high” aka THC, it undergoes a series of paths. The THC enters the bloodstream then enters the brain. The cannabinoid receptors kick off a series of cellular reactions causing the high. This high can cause disturbed perceptions, impaired coordination, and problems with communicating. Marijuana is one one of the toughest fighting ingredients in the…

Words 1285 - Pages 6

Reasearch Essay Nick Bass

game, hate the player” The 21st century is here. Technology has grown in the past twenty years, and along with it, gaming. Gaming introduces a number of experiences from medieval times and battles, futuristic worlds and technology, and even current day life and conflict. But in order to immerse gamers into the game, they have to make it realistic, and that very concept spawned violent video games. Sadly, today’s society believes that teen killers like James Holmes, Adam Lanza, and others were violent…

Words 1141 - Pages 5

Marijuana Research Paper

Adam Rosenberg Mr. Mayesh Advanced Composition 11/22/13 Marijuana: Should It Be Legalized? Marijuana is the most common illegally used substance in the United States of America (National Institute of Drug Abuse). The drug itself has grown immensely in popularity in recent decades. The major problem with the drug is the naive misconception that the general public has of Marijuana; the general public believes that Marijuana is harmless and more medicinal than anything. While, Marijuana is not the…

Words 2544 - Pages 11