Teens Today Are More Childish Than Ever, According To Science

A study of 8.3 million teens was just released by San Diego State University that suggests today's youth are taking much longer to grow up. The surveys, conducted between 1976 and 2016, revealed alarming trends in younger populations. Fewer teens have jobs, fewer can drive, and fewer are drinking and having sex.

"I'd seen trend pieces characterizing these trends as meaning teens were more 'virtuous,' when talking about declines in sex or alcohol, or that teens were 'lazy' when talking about declines in working," Jean Twenge, co-author of the study, told Seeker. "But I thought both of those missed the big picture — that teens were taking longer to grow up."

While teens can't put off insurance payments and credit card bills, they can procrastinate adulthood — and at first, it seemed teens were actually using this youthful time more wisely than ever. In humans and in other species of animals, delayed development is associated with a greater proportion of time spent learning. Instead of working and drinking, are today's teens spending more time poring over their homework?

Unfortunately, the data did not support a newfound devotion to formal education — the time spent doing homework and extracurricular activities has actually decreased among eighth and tenth graders and remained stagnant for high school seniors and college students. If not homework, then what? Study authors were puzzled. Teens must be spending their time somewhere else.

Twenge speculates that the time could be spent online. She explains that computers and smartphones "likely accelerated some of the trends in the last 10 years, as many of them involve getting out of the house, which is now less necessary for communicating with friends." To play flip cup and take your date to the movies, you have to get off your living room couch. But hanging out with friends no longer necessitates going outside. Teens might not be getting jobs, having sex, and engaging in other adult behaviors simply because they don't have to.

Twenge and her colleague Heejung Park also discovered that adult activities were less common during eras with trends of smaller family sizes, higher median incomes, and fewer disease-related deaths. Duration of education also decreased the frequency of adult activities.

One could argue that fewer adult activities like drinking, drugs, or sex could lead to a healthier lifestyle. Though the authors of the study chose not to go down that road, here are 10 ways today's millennials are healthier than their parents.