The distracted teenage
brain
Most teenagers have a reputation of
not making smart decisions, and having a different way of thinking. Some researchers
blame those bad decisions on the immaturity of a teenager’s prefrontal cortex. It
is the part of the brain that makes decisions and plans (a way of thinking).
A phycologist named Zackary Roper and his team
worked with two groups: 13-16 year olds and 20-35 years old. Each person had to
play a game. During the game, a computer had six circles on the screen, they
were all different colours. The players had to find a red or green circle. These
targets had a horizontal or vertical line inside. The other targets had lines
at different angles. When a player found the right circle they had to press two
keys on a keyboard. The keys they pressed meant they found the circle with the
vertical or the horizontal line. When one of the players hit the right key, the
screen would flash of how they got it correct.
For some players, green circles
provided a large (10-cent) reward and red circles rewarded a small (2-cent)
reward. For all of the players, the amounts were reversed. With red circles
worth more. All other colors had no reward.
When the scientist asked the players
about the value of red vs. green colors, both teens and adults didn’t know that
a circles colour had any effect of how much they earned during the game.
After the game was done, the scientists told the
players that they had a new target. Each player had to report the orientation
of the line inside the blue diamond. Again, groups of six symbols were on the
screen. Only one was a diamond. The other five were still circles. In other
trials there were no red and green circles.
The researchers checked how long it
took for the players to find the diamond and record their answers. When no red
or green circles were among the onscreen options, both adults and teens
responded quickly. But when a red or green circle showed up, both groups took a
bit longer. Adults, though, quickly stopped paying attention to the colored
circles.
Teens reacted differently. They took
longer to respond whenever a red or green circle showed up. Their response
times never sped up. Their attention still was drawn to the previously valued
circles, even though the shapes no longer brought any reward. The red and green
circles were distracting teens from their objective. The game demonstrates that
the attention of adolescents is especially drawn to rewarding information. Texting
or using social media, trigger the brain’s reward system. Once the teenage
brain has linked a behavior to that reward, it continues to seek the reward
again and again.
This shows that teenagers have a
different way of thinking, how will you think it will affect teenagers in life
by thinking that way?
What is another reason why teenagers
think this way?
Why do adults have a different way of
thinking?
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