Defending young brains

A NY Times op-ed article by Mike Males defends young brains:

Commentators brand teenagers as stupid, crazy, reckless, immature, irrational and even alien, then advocate tough curbs on youthful freedoms.

. . .

Why ... do many pundits and policy makers rush to denigrate adolescents as brainless? One troubling possibility: youths are being maligned to draw attention from the reality that it’s actually middle-aged adults — the parents — whose behavior has worsened.

He goes on to list various problems of middle-aged people. The most scary of which is declining intelligence:

[T]he experts never mention even more damning new “discoveries” about the middle-aged brain, like the 2004 study of scans by Harvard researchers revealing declines in key memory and learning genes that become significant by age 40.

My own take on this is that the depiction of young brains as abnormal and older brains as normal is obviously from the perspective of older people who control society's resources and political power. But modern man's lifespan has been extended unnaturally by modern medicine. Few of our caveman ancestors lived to be the age of a typical member of Congress. From the long-term perspective of our species, it's the young brain that's normal and the old brain that's an oddity.

Comments

[Peter]

Speaking as someone who is (gulp!) past 40, though (whew!) not too far past that landmark age, the only mental-related change I've noticed is that it's sometimes ever so slightly more difficult to remember some things when I'm reading. Mostly this applies only WRT nonfiction books of greater-than-average complexity. For instance, I'm now reading Greg Clark's A Farewell to Alms, and on a few occasions I've had to glance back at an earlier page to re-acquaint myself with what I read the day before. On the other hand, I had no need to do the same with the book I recently finished, Graham Greene's The End of the Affair, even though it was a fairly complex work of fiction.

Again, this declining ability to recall written material is very minor and hasn't interfered at all with my enjoyment of reading. Nor has it had any effects on my work functions, which involve a fair amount of reading and writing. And it's not altogether impossible that reading has become somewhat more difficult because I do most of my book reading in less-than-congenial conditions while riding the train. It is very difficult to concentrate on a complex work of nonfiction when I am being squashed by a testosterone-dripping SCA who is babbling on his cell phone about last weekend's round of cartball.

[bbartlog]

Article does a good job of summarizing one of the reasons I hate the boomers. Peace, free love, drugs ... the 60s ... twenty years pass... oh but now that *we're* grown up it's time for a war on drugs, transparent backpacks in schools, and a zero-tolerance policy for any sort of rowdy behavior. Lots of people think they've become wise when really they just got old.

And get this about the Boomer fucks and Ritalin. Hippies, fucking dirty hippies used to take that shit to get high! Now they give it to their kids to calm them down and make them controllable (they hope). Hypocrites and assholes, all of them. And they don't know how to raise their kids either.
And if you think the SCAs on the train are bad(and they are), try being stuck in an airport or on a plane with them for hours to Seattle, Portland, Vancouver, etc... or somewhere on flights from Newark Airport. It is a fucking hell.

[Peter]

And if you think the SCAs on the train are bad(and they are), try being stuck in an airport or on a plane with them for hours to Seattle, Portland, Vancouver, etc... or somewhere on flights from Newark Airport.

Yeah, but I ride an SCA-infested train twice a day, over an hour each way, 200+ days a year. It's horrible. Heck, I had a near-death experience at the hands - okay, at the fat body - of an SCA just last Friday.

[Sapphire]

I heard that men's brains start to shrink after a certain age but women's stay the same. I think that declining mental ability wouldn’t happen at the same rate and age for everybody because it would depend upon lifestyle and genetics. Age 40 is nothing but rough ballpark figure. Some people are still sharp at the age of 40 just like there are some women that age that can still get pregnant and give birth to healthy kids. We don’t' all age at the same rate!

[Joshua Holmes]

But modern man's lifespan has been extended unnaturally by modern medicine. Few of our caveman ancestors lived to be the age of a typical member of Congress.

True, but it's not modern medicine that's extended life so long; it's the fact that our lives are so much less dangerous. Pushing pencils isn't as exciting as hunting wild boar, but it's substantially less dangerous. Hunter-gatherers don't die in their 30s due to heart disease or pancreatic cancer. They die due to animal attacks, exposure, and near-constant intertribal squabbles.

[AllanF]

Any seeming abnormality on the part of young brains is most often a manifestation of the abnormality with which society treats young people.

What happened to HAL comes to mind.

Paul Graham has written at length on the subject.

[AllanF]

Graham's also written on the importance (or not) of college, a topic often discussed here.

[SFG]

Odd. The point of this blog would seem to be that life resembles high school more than it doesn't.

[Dan Morgan]

Some of the most fun you will ever have is as a teenager, even if it is sometimes reckless fun.

But of course once you become a parent of one of these teenagers, you have to constantly worry about their reckless fun getting them hurt.

But still, I hate all these "curbs on youthful freedoms" that some states have put in place. Some areas have driving curfews for teenagers, and some places have curfews in general. Teenagers can't drink until they turn 21 - but they can go to fight and get killed in Iraq. I read once that the average age on an aircraft carrier is 19. But damn, you better be sure these teenagers never get a hold of a beer, because they are not mature enough for that.

But damn, you better be sure these teenagers never get a hold of a beer, because they are not mature enough for that.

If online videos of college parties are any indication...they're not.

Then again, IMHO, neither are 99% of "adults".

There's one wrinkle in comparing middle aged adults with teenagers and claiming that the middle aged have declining intelligence: experience. A teenager may indeed do better on a learning or memory test. But if correct information has already been learned by the middle aged adult, and the teenager has yet to sort through conflicting information and learn what is correct, guess who is ahead.

This is the source of much of the conflict between teenager and adult. It's not that teenagers are stupid, it's that they are inexperienced. Which leads to behavior that more experienced people perceive to be irrational, crazy, reckless, immature, etc.

[DML]

Teens are idiots. It's true! And it's OK. Why is this news or worthy of an op-ed piece?

[ron purewal]

@Dan Morgan

But still, I hate all these "curbs on youthful freedoms" that some states have put in place. Some areas have driving curfews for teenagers, and some places have curfews in general.

A lot of this can be viewed as a trade-off for the lighter penalties, and greater forgiveness, given to teenagers for their 'youthful indiscretions.'

In any case, most curfew laws provide for so large a profusion of 'exceptions' (work, family, school-related commitments, etc.) as to ensure their application only to teens who Just Shouldn't Be Out Where They Are.

[ron purewal]

@Joshua Holmes
True, but it's not modern medicine that's extended life so long; it's the fact that our lives are so much less dangerous.

That's a joke, right?

Unless you think that we were still hunter-gatherers in 1850.

There are exactly three principal reasons why we live as long as we do: modern medicine, modern sanitation, and an atmosphere of (relative) peace.

[agnostic]

Of course teenagers are more irrational (in the sense of less level-headed, or higher in Neuroticism), and reckless. Cross-sectional and longitudinal personality studies show this, but it's obvious.

When is a person most likely to commit crime? I know when I see a group of 40 year-olds, I run the other way. Jesus Christ.

Fluid intelligence does really decline after 30, but no one has promoted a false stereotype that older people are really brainy and good at solving puzzles. The stereotype is that they're wiser, not more cognitively dexterous.

If you have the wrong view of youngsters' brains, you'll give them greater lee-way to act like savages. Pundits have no clue, and no one in the know buys their folktales. But real-life teenagers love movies like *Mean Girls* because they show how adolescence really is. It's nasty, brutish, and -- thankfully -- short.

[Joshua Holmes]

Unless you think that we were still hunter-gatherers in 1850.

HS didn't compare us to 1850, he compared us to cavemen. Again, cavemen died young because they lived and worked in a dangerous environment, not because of cancer or heart disease.

Modern medicine has obviously extended the lives of post-civilization humans, but modern medicine has emerged to treat many problems hunter-gatherers simply didn't have.

[AllanF]

Odd. The point of this blog would seem to be that life resembles high school more than it doesn't.

I'd not call it odd, I'd call it perfect.

One should know which parts of life are high school and which are not and respond accordingly.

For many bright folks, early on there comes a fork in the road. Whether one realizes it or not, you can go the safe route where life is high school and being in the right click and showing up is most important. Alternately, there is the entreprenuer route which is not high school. It is high risk, high reward, your performance matters but there is a lot more chance to success than most people realize.

So, know where you are and act/optimize accordingly.

And for the non-bright folks, I'd say all of life is high school.