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What's Wrong With The Teenage Mind Analysis

Decent Essays

The Choices Adolescents Make The control adolescents express over the choices they make, like the rise and fall of the tide, is fluid and dependant on multiple factors. These factors--biography, biology and current situation--are essential to the adolescent decision-making process as they manage to influence, but not control, the choices we make. The biography, or history, of an individual provides teens the opportunity of considering their previous experiences before making decisions. In the National Geographic interview “Malala Yousafzai: Why I Fight For Education,” Yousafzai, a young Pakistani activist, credited her courage and activism to her upbringing: “My parents were always there to say that I have this right to speak, I have this right …show more content…

In her Wall Street Journal essay “What’s Wrong With the Teenage Mind?,” author Alison Gopnik restates the words of Psychologist Ronald Dahl to describe the impact of adolescent biology on their decisions: “Adolescents acquire an accelerator a long time before they can steer and brake.” (Gopnik) Dahl stated that adolescents “accelerate,” and develop, emotionally before gaining the necessary experience needed to “steer” and fully control their actions. The fact that biology factors into both the choices adolescents make and the amount of control they acquire is valid. An example of biology in decision-making was shown between the Spring of 2006 and 2007 in Oakdale, California. On March 31, 2006, Amanda Clark, a confident high school senior, crashed into a passing car after running a stop sign in her hometown of Oakdale. Distracted at the time of the accident, Clark was talking on her phone only seconds before the crash--failing to notice the stop sign while she spoke. Despite rolling her vehicle three times, Amanda sustained minimal injury and as a result, swore to now “put her phone away” while driving. However, only a year later, after texting her roommate, Clark experienced a similar, but fatal, accident which resulted in her death. When deciding to use her phone, once again, while driving, Amanda’s biography was such a …show more content…

In the classic tragedy Romeo and Juliet, esteemed playwright William Shakespeare states how Romeo, the play's co-protagonist, after witnessing the death of his best friend, Mercutio, considers both his biography and biology within the given context of his situation before deciding how to react. “Alive in triumph--and Mercutio slain!/ Away to heaven, respective lentity,/ And fire-eyed fury be my conduct now.” (III, i, 118-120) Within the few seconds between Mercutio and Tybalt’s deaths, Romeo, plagued with grief, considered only his negative experiences and “fury” with Tybalt, in place of his full biography, before deciding “fire-eyed fury” should guide him. The handicap of his mind being stuck “in the heat of the moment” prevented him from viewing the consequences killing the cousin of his beloved, Juliet, would have on his future. The fact that the situation of a choice can deeply affect its result is both valid and used not only in fiction but in law. When assessing a crime, the jury must always consider the situation in which it occurred as the distinction between manslaughter and 1st degree murder can mean the difference between a life sentence and 10 years. The situation of a choice, and it’s relative context, changes the perception young individuals have of their other factors, biography and biology, compared to the views they might have in a

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