iGen: Why Today's Super-Connected Kids Are Growing Up Less Rebellious, More Tolerant, Less Happy--and Completely Unprepared for Adulthood--and What That Means for the Rest of Us

by Jean M. Twenge

well-publicized studies of brain development have shown that the frontal cortex, the brain area responsible for judgment and decision making, does not complete its development until age 25. This has spawned the idea that teens are not quite ready to grow up and thus need more protection for a longer time. These findings about underdeveloped teen brains have generated numerous books, articles, and online parenting advice. Interestingly, the interpretation of these studies seems to ignore a fundamental truth of brain research: that the brain changes based on experience. Maybe today’s teens and young adults have an underdeveloped frontal cortex because they have not been given adult responsibilities. If brain scanners existed in 1950, I wonder what they would have shown of a generation that usually started work at 18, married at 21, and had children soon after. That interpretation of such studies is never offered, however, leaving parents believing that their teen and young adult children are biologically programmed to make poor choices.