MAP Forum

Let’s of people claim that adults and teenagers are very different in terms of personality, way they think, interests. Would you agree. Many people would always says there is no way an adult would have anything in common with a teenager?
Do you agree or do you believe adults and teenagers or more similar than people realise.
Would you say adults needs and desires from teenagers or can be more similar to them?

Teenagers and adults are much more similar than people think, in every respect: psychological, physical, and cognitive.

But, furthermore, of the few differences that do exist, most are socially constructed. Most cultures throughout human history have not even had a term for adolescence, because it did not exist: reaching puberty meant becoming an adult (it is another matter that particularly complex professions or positions were reserved for older people, but that is not a question of adolescence versus adulthood). It's like the fact that you can't be a doctor under the age of 25 or a judge under the age of 30.

But yes, if you pass laws that restrict teenagers' freedoms far more than those of adults and pressure them to behave differently, you can indeed get them to behave differently, whereas in societies where this isn't done, there are hardly any differences between teenagers and adults.

Interestingly, if you read a news story about teenagers committing crimes, everyone is absolutely certain that they should be treated as adults. When it comes to imprisoning them, those distinctions no longer exist. It’s as if those distinctions existed solely to restrict their freedoms—isn’t that curious?

aeterna91 wrote: Tue Aug 04, 2026 1:16 pm Teenagers and adults are much more similar than people think, in every respect: psychological, physical, and cognitive.

But, furthermore, of the few differences that do exist, most are socially constructed. Most cultures throughout human history have not even had a term for adolescence, because it did not exist: reaching puberty meant becoming an adult (it is another matter that particularly complex professions or positions were reserved for older people, but that is not a question of adolescence versus adulthood). It's like the fact that you can't be a doctor under the age of 25 or a judge under the age of 30.

But yes, if you pass laws that restrict teenagers' freedoms far more than those of adults and pressure them to behave differently, you can indeed get them to behave differently, whereas in societies where this isn't done, there are hardly any differences between teenagers and adults.

Interestingly, if you read a news story about teenagers committing crimes, everyone is absolutely certain that they should be treated as adults. When it comes to imprisoning them, those distinctions no longer exist. It’s as if those distinctions existed solely to restrict their freedoms—isn’t that curious?

I've always thought this. I remember there was a news story about 12-year-old boys raping a girl and people were taking a very hard retributive stance when they would see a legal adult having sex with those same 12-year-olds as deeply exploitive (statutory rape, in fact) because a 12-year-old can't understand what sex is, can't make a rational decision about it etc. yet s/he has the rational agency to be charged for sex crimes that they commit. The inconsistency is so blatant and in your face.

I'm 40 and I really don't feel that different than when I was a teenager, especially or at least when I was in my late teens. My worldview has changed (my basic worldview goes back to 26, I would say) but my core personality doesn't really seem to be different. I can look back at when I was 12, 13, 16, maybe even 17 and see how immature and childish I was in some ways but I'm not totally unrelatable to myself at those ages (in terms of 'core personality,' we do have different interests. I went through a series of notable changes in my early 20s in terms of interests, values, perspectives, ).

It's said that people's minds are still developing into their 20s - so a teen is very like a younger adult in that sense. And in many ways more like that than they are like a young child.

I can understand someone still being a "dependent" to a significant age in modern culture because our complex technology etc means a long education, so it makes sense to have a "minor" category as long as we understand it has limitations. And remember in technical language "minor" is more "smaller" than "less important". But we need to understand that differs from neurology/biology. There are no hard lines there.

Early childhood, childhood and teens are such different phases. The change to adult seems subtle in comparison.

And so many different ways to define adult.

teens and adults are the 2 most similar groups of ppl that i can think of. hell sometimes smaller children sometimes can be similar to adults (mainly in the throwing tantrums when they dont get their way)

aeterna91 wrote: Tue Aug 04, 2026 1:16 pm But, furthermore, of the few differences that do exist, most are socially constructed. Most cultures throughout human history have not even had a term for adolescence, because it did not exist: reaching puberty meant becoming an adult (it is another matter that particularly complex professions or positions were reserved for older people, but that is not a question of adolescence versus adulthood). It's like the fact that you can't be a doctor under the age of 25 or a judge under the age of 30.

But yes, if you pass laws that restrict teenagers' freedoms far more than those of adults and pressure them to behave differently, you can indeed get them to behave differently, whereas in societies where this isn't done, there are hardly any differences between teenagers and adults.

Interestingly, if you read a news story about teenagers committing crimes, everyone is absolutely certain that they should be treated as adults. When it comes to imprisoning them, those distinctions no longer exist. It’s as if those distinctions existed solely to restrict their freedoms—isn’t that curious?

Ding ding ding. "Teenager" is a socially constructed identity category, and it's not even a particularly old one. Boomers were essentially the first generation in the west to get to be "teenagers". Before that you went from being considered to be a child to being a young adult more or less some time just after puberty.

It's not that people didn't recognize that 13-17 year olds are developmentally different from older adults or treat them somewhat differently from their elders, there has always been the recognition that humans aren't fully mature and ready for stuff like marriage and leadership authority until at least a few years after puberty typically, but in the past we didn't essentialize adolescence and treat teens as a culturally and behaviorally discrete category like we do today.

It's easy to only look at American teens or British teens and make assumptions about certain things being inherent to that stage of life, but anyone who has traveled around different countries will be able to tell you that the traits which define teens in wealthy anglo countries are far from being universal. Teens in a lot of developing countries are more mature than most college students in the US. Even within the US maturity has far more to do with upbringing and familial environment than it does with the fundamental laws of human brain development or whatever bullshit pseudoscientific justification people try to give for their bio-essentialism. When I worked in schools I could nearly always predict what a kid's parents would be like based on what the kid was like. Patient, respectful, mature kids tended to have highly involved and attentive parents, but obnoxious, immature kids who couldn't even be trusted to tie their own shoes without making a mess tended to have more neglectful parents, either physically or emotionally.

Some people misattribute this to "discipline" or a supposed lack thereof, as if spanking your kid and enforcing strict rules on them will make them mature, but that's bullshit. Kids raised in those kind of strict environments with hardass parents are often just as bad as the ones with completely absent parents. It's more about emotional attachment, role-modelling, guidance, etc. The strict fundamentalist type parents are often very emotionally neglectful and bad at modelling social-emotional skills like self-regulation and conflict management, because they lack those skills themselves.

Immature parents raise immature kids, basically. And cultures that treat kids like they're incompetent and irresponsible teach kids to be incompetent and irresponsible. It's not that complicated.

Another out of touch question. You might as well ask which mod has the biggest penis.

the same