The Conscious and Decisive Teen
Written by Scott Lee - Released May 13th, 2007Recently in the April/May issue of Scientific American Mind, I encountered something startling. But before I go into exactly what it was, I first want to talk about a concept I created years ago on an old website of mine called YoungPRer.com. The concept was called Evolving Youth. It began as an article that I had written describing how the mind of youth works. And when I say the mind of youth, I am not just referring to any individual mind, I am referring to the collective Mind, as well. Or in other words, the mind of youth is youth acting as a whole within society. Teenagers today are commonly finding themselves trapped in a separate world from adults, but what is also pointed out from a number of sources - the United States and other Westernized cultures have very particular sorts of teen problems and issues.
In the U.S., teenagers have commonly been labeled as misfits, delinquents, and irresponsible. In the article I read entitled The Myth of the Teen Brain, writer Robert Epstein has written to claim that behind the growing number of laws that limit teen behavior, the invention and introduction of television, and poorly understood brain activity charts - there lies a fully functional, and even a potentially superior, human being.
There is no question that since the 1950’s, teenagers have been changing, and no - not just puberty. But speaking of puberty, it has been occurring at an earlier and earlier age for decades now as time has gone on. The politics have changed, the sexual revolution has passed, the counter culture has been invented, and high school shootings have damaged the reputation and security of high schools nationwide. The food we are eating has changed, as agriculture experiments with cloning and injecting our farm animals with synthetic hormones. The particular events that have taken place, combined with the shift in technology and active media have managed to take youth in a serious turn. But to where?
Perhaps the best example of how things have changed can be found in just spending a single week going to your child’s local intermediate or high school. An excerpt from the article:
Prompted by a rash of deadly school shootings over the past decade, many American high schools now resemble prisons, with guards, metal detectors and video monitoring systems, and the high school dropout rate is nearly 50 percent among minorities in large U.S. cities.
But are such problems truly inevitable? If the turmoil-generating ‘teen brain’ were a universal developmental phenomenon, we would presumably find turmoil of this kind around the world. Do we?
In 1991 anthropologist Alice Schelegel of the University of Arizona and psychologist Herbert Barry III of the University of Pittsburgh reviewed research on teens in 186 preindustrial societies. Among the important conclusions they drew about these societies: about 60 percent had no word for ‘adolescence,’ teens spent almost all their time with adults, teens showed almost no signs of psychopathology, and antisocial behavior in young males was completely absent in more than half these cultures and extremely mild in cultures in which it did occur.
The core fact of the matter is - something is happening, and something has been happening on a mass scale for decades, possibly even the entire past century. With the advent of technology, with the shift in media, with the splitting movement in culture, we are seeing a brand new age, and a whole new generation of people that we will have never seen anywhere anytime in known history. Youth is evolving, and we can say that like new technology - the question of whether or not it takes a turn for the better or for the worse will be a matter of how this energy is directed.
When talking to my own parents about this, they remark that there is “nothing new under the sun,” and that there really is no original experience that kids today have, not really, over the experience that previous generations have had. But I am not the only one disagreeing, and that disagreement is apparently not coming from me simply because I am now 19 years old and was, or am, a teen myself quite recently.
In my book, The Island of Yellow, I tell a story from my perspective about young teen Cacee Kenner and her influence on the others around her in a social network. The book was written from a period in time between 1998 to 2002, during which time I was one of the few individuals in existence to witness, right in front of my eyes without any specific bias, a single girl and her rise or fall to adulthood, as well as the entire group of people that surrounded her. Throughout the events of the book, I was able to make many predictions, many of them seemingly impossible, purely based off of deductive reasoning and intuitive analysis. The story, which can be looked at many different ways, is something I have questioned myself about: did I really do that? Many days I look back at what I know, and say a very definitive, “yes.”
Western culture and the Western teenager are very exclusive to only a specific sort of environment and mood. Epstein also points out that “in many Western cultures, teens socialize almost exclusively with other teens.” Where as in other parts of the world, the phase of ‘adolescence,’ is not nearly so emphasized, and there is more of an even integration and functionality between adults and teenagers. This might explain why when I was in London, all the adults seemed so much more respectful(or that could just be the people of the UK for you). 
Between 1850 and the year 2000, over 120 different laws have been passed that govern the legal behavior of teens in the United States. Both research and, in my view, common sense will tell you - infantilizing and isolating teenagers from responsibility and their common rights will make them act more like children than ever before. In just a few locations, teens are making an incredible difference, and while a teen mind is unable to gain information as quickly as an even younger child, teenagers also have a drastically improved learning ability beyond that of adults. The societal conditioning on teen behavior could use a facelift, and some teen credibility could be given some of what it’s worth. So for those of you reading Hayley Dimarco or listening to your child’s high school counselor, learn a hard pressed fact: teens can in fact take care of themselves, and can even know what is best for them in a higher number of situations than you might give them credit.
If I were to ever set out to look for proof that teenagers are capable of being highly capable individuals, I’d need look no further than myself. At age 18, I started my first company, and by age 17 I had written my first book. I was running my own class at my high school during my senior year, when no one else got that same sort of privilege. When the teacher had a question, she would ask me. I was the biggest rebel I knew, and when people were pressing me to do one thing with my life, I often did another during the heart of my teen years, following my intuition. My point is not to brag, my point is that perhaps you could say I was one of the few individuals who did not accept the effect of a society pressing down with one idea when in reality there is another more accurate.
The laws are not the only thing that has changed with the way teens have been treated over the past several decades. Psychologists are viewing the different age ranges with a new outlook, as well as a new sort of authority, that they had never done in the past. Part of this is also due in part to the fact that psychology is fairly new, and philosophy treated youth as a figurative state in metaphor. The amount of drugs in use to try to help the kids to fall in line with the currently existing educational system has been on an epidemic rise over the past 10 years. Prozac, Zoloft, Lexapro and more are being prescribed to new kids daily, and the scary part of it all is that we are not even sure how these medications are permanently affecting the brain, or other areas of the body. A number of heart-related deaths have already been linked to the use of Ritalin for children with ADD/ADHD.
Children are being conditioned to grow into teenagers with an emotional attitude that, in effect, could be described as a mass reaction to being science’s ongoing guinea pig. As technology and science advances, the experiments played on the public in an effort to improve a current situation will also affect the behavior and choices of a future generation.
From the number of problems that have been presented here, there is a single conclusion that can be reached. Suicide is the third largest cause of death in teens. Behavior altering medication such as anti-depressants has increased dramatically over the past decade. Right brain dominance is now recognized as the newly forming common trend of left brain dominance. The school system has a tendency not to change, but one day will be required to. Throughout the difficulty and the pain that the future generations will experience, we must remember one thing.
There is a choice.
Posted: May 13th, 2007 under General Philosophy, Main.
Comments: 6
Comments
Comment from PTDW
Time: May 15, 2007, 3:44 pm
Wouldn’t “Scott Free Thinking” mean the content of this site would be free of, well, YOU?
And as far as a company founded by a teen, lots of people “found” companies. It’s in measuring the company’s success that the company’s founder is deemed a success. Would you care to share details, yearly net profits, etc.?
Same with “writing a book”. Lulu.com and other ‘vanity presses’ will let anyone publish a book for a price. How many copies have sold of your books?
I’m not trying to pile on here, but so far all I’m reading is nothing new (ala Tony Robbins, The Secret, etc.) In fact, all of the “created a store in partnership with CafePress” is a tad deceptive as well. Anyone with an uploadable gif or jpeg can print tshirts and mugs on CafePress. It’s like saying I created an online newspaper distributed daily in partnership with Hotmail. A tad pompous IMHO.
Comment from Scott Lee
Time: May 16, 2007, 1:43 am
To answer your first question: no. The name Scott Free Thinking means free thinking from Scott, myself. So with that definition in mind, the first idea is that I can think freely and speak on whatever I want; it is my website, after all.
My company has been very successful on its current scale, and we are accomplishing more with it than we initially thought we ever could. What measures a company’s success? Its money? Its mission? Its creative accomplishments? Barton Ct. has done more for us than high school or our parents probably did on the creative, or even professional front. In that aspect, it is a very successful company that I love, both in its principle and the people that have made it what it is.
Writing a book is something that not everyone can do; is everyone in the world going to take the time to sit down and explore themselves in a literary medium? Will everyone take the effort and energy to churn out over a hundred pages of self exploration, or even attempt to creative a beautiful story to share with others? Absolutely not, the point of this idea is that for someone to successfully start and finish writing a book shows that they have a certain kind of initiative, a passion, a fire. I’m well aware anyone can use a vanity press - and who cares how many copies of my book have sold? Was I writing it for the people that buy it or was I writing it to tell a story? Writing has never been about making money or becoming popular, or at least…it definitely didn’t start that way.
Sure, anyone can use on-demand services like CafePress, but is CafePress or the sales reports what I’m boasting about? No, sir. It’s the creativity. A person can print some text on a shirt and get another to laugh, another might be able to take their beautiful hand drawn artwork and produce a design that no one else has ever created before. It’s about originality, it’s about expression.
The only one being pompous would have to be you, because you are too concerned with finding someone who has genuine credibility to you. Since I do not have the certificates, the numbers, or the market - you’re assuming that you should not listen to what I have to say. What you might later realize is that your discrediting of someone due to their commercial success is actually a highlight of how your own commercial success is non-existent. If it bothers you that I do not have the things you’re seeking, it also bothers you that you do not have what you want either.
Teenagers, or even adults, children, human BEINGS in general are not supposed to be measured by their achievements or super achievements. Our brains do not function by terms of numbers alone; you can learn a lifetime of lessons from the mentally retarded just as quickly as you can from a high IQ college professor; they’re simply different fields of knowledge, one based on syntax, the other based on experience. One has value in one area, the other in another.
What I would like to suggest is that for those who read about success and achievement, desiring it for themselves, measure it not by numbers, measure it by heart. Numbers cannot be applied to lifetime happiness, only heart can be happiness - and happiness is what creates a successful life.
Comment from Jimmy
Time: May 16, 2007, 10:09 am
“Writing a book is something that not everyone can do; is everyone in the world going to take the time to sit down and explore themselves in a literary medium?”
Actually, anyone CAN write a book. Not everyone can write a book worth reading (or buying.) The answer to who’s going to explore themselves in a literary way, again, more than you purport. It’s called a dairy or blog. The fact that you sent a Word doc or PDF of it to a vanity press is not an impressive accomplishment.
You said: “Numbers cannot be applied to lifetime happiness, only heart can be happiness - and happiness is what creates a successful life.”
They say beauty is in the eye of the beholder. In other words, it’s subjective. I would say your hypothesis is that happiness/success is the same thing; in the eye of the beholder and subjective. The problem is, you quantify the totality of your ‘accomplishments’ as your qualifications for you to be heard, being successful or set apart from other teens, but yet you shun quantifying the financial success and whether the companies and books created actually had a connection with a sizeable audience.
Because the fact is, success in business isn’t Scott paying someone to publish his book and Mary Lou at the trailer park starting a business selling crocheted toaster cozies just because they DID it. Success in business is growing a profitable company that connects with an audience, meets a need, and pays a livable wage to its employees. HOW successful is a comparison of that company with other like companies in the same categories, that’s why there’s a Fortune 500 and an Inc Top 50.
Are you a self-starter? No question. Are you confident? Some might say overly. Are you a good businessman because you’ve started businesses? Hardly! Are you a successful author because you paid someone to self-publish your book? Please.
Scott, there’s no question you are a successful hobbyist. But until you demonstrate true business success, they’re just hobbies. A little dose of humble pie never hurts, and your resume/ego inflation doesn’t fool anyone. “Pursuing your Associates Degree in Psychology”? Everyone knows an Associates degree is a community college certificate in general studies with a small number of 100 or 200 level classes that any freshman in college or grandma with time on her hands can take.
My advice (along with most life coaches) is to find one thing you’re good at and that you’re passionate about and stick with it. Designing tshirts, making short films, writing pop psychology, whichever. But maybe take a hard look at toning down your propensity to build yourself up into more than you are. It just shows your immaturity and lack of comfort in living in reality. The fact is you’ve started a lot of things that most teens would not have. FACT, FACT, FACT!
But all the verbosity inflating your ventures into sounding like things that they’re not, doesn’t accomplish your goal, which I thought was to show that young people can be motivated to do more than play Xbox. While your accomplishments show you’re unafraid of taking risks, the way you present them shows you SO want people to be impressed, but they’re just not as impressive as you think they are. They show initiative, but that’s it. They don’t show business savvy, a connection with a specific audience or demographic, or profitability.
Unfortunately, whether this is reality or not, you present yourself as an narcissistic egomaniac. And positive thinking aside, there’s nothing healthy psychologically about that.
You say happiness is what creates a successful life. Then stop the egocentric inflated language and self promotion. Pursue your hobbies and education without regards for financial success. I’ll be the first to say, “good for you, I’m glad you’re happy.” But just realize when you hold yourself up for examination saying, “look at me and what I’ve done and what I’ve written!”, some people are actually going take a closer look and see if there’s any substance.
P.S.- I get the Scott Free Thinking now that you explained it, but if a blog was titled “Sugar Free Thinking”…I think PTDW has a point as far as poor branding.
If it means that to you and you like it, great (hobby). It you study branding for a business, it’s all about the customer/reader’s first impression/thought.
Comment from Taos
Time: May 16, 2007, 10:42 am
Scott said: “Since I do not have the certificates, the numbers, or the market - you’re assuming that you should not listen to what I have to say.”
I don’t see where he was saying that. He was referring to you exaggerating your businesses and hobbies to get us to listen to what you say. You don’t ever say, “I’m just a typical 19 year old, but maybe there’s some truth written here.” Instead you say, “look at me, look at my businesses, look at my books….listen to me.”
You can’t have it both ways. You offer up all your accomplishments as your impressive “I don’t want to brag” vitae in place of “certificates, the numbers, or the market” but yet want success to be quantified as “happiness”.
On your myspace page, you list Jesus Christ as a hero, but no where in your writings on this blog do you confess him or include tenets of Christianity. In fact, any studied follower of Christ knows that He doesn’t guarantee a life of happiness here on Earth. Christ wants lives of holiness, not happiness.
Comment from Scott Lee
Time: May 16, 2007, 2:34 pm
lol Bravo! Thank you so much for all of the feedback you’re giving me, this is great!
Guys - I’ll admit you’ve got some points. Here’s some real information that I, well, on this blog, have not particularly mentioned often, if at all:
I have commonly seen myself in the past as kind of crazy, even delusional. The people that are closest to me have been the first ones to tell me that I am MASSIVELY egocentric, and often times this can give people a terrible vibe that I am trying to act superior to other people. But that simply isn’t true. It’s as you said - perhaps teens could get out and do more than play Xbox? I began this blog as a means to not just help others, but in form it has also been helping me, and others who know me will likely be able to tell you that it has helped to keep my train of thought centered on a single goal.
I never meant to imply that my accomplishments were impressive. Am I proud of them? Yes, I am! The things I have put together artistically are the things that I love to do, they’re my passion and have been for years. There is nothing wrong with showing self pride, though I do understand that I can go overboard with it and for that I sincerely apologize. I will try to work on this in the future.
All personal experience and what seems to have been majority opinion tells me that I am NOT a typical 19 year old - but you believe I am?
What is your point about my pursuing an Associate’s degree right now? It is simply where I am in life. I have not implied that not many other people can do it, or that it is worthy of noting as an accomplishment. A biography, even one geared towards marketing in a specific way, does not have to be about nothing but credentials. I’m a high school graduate right now, and I am perfectly aware of that.
If you feel that how I am presenting myself is giving off too much of a vibe of my wanting people to be impressed, how would you suggest I better present the information to be more helpful to the reader?
That may be what YOU say success in business is, but there are plenty of companies out there, including all those big major corporations, that are not paying people livable wages, being socially conscious - but they’ve got billions invested in them, and they’re profitable. Is this to say that companies like Wal-Mart are failing in your definition?
Barton Ct. Productions is a corporation, and a corporation is a legal entity. That entity can be devoted to any purpose. Hell, we could even devote that purpose to making toaster pastries just for ourselves to eat and enjoy. And that would be how the company could be defined: “we don’t make money, but we love ourselves some strawberry jam!!” The point is that we feel we are making an impact in people’s lives the way we set out to do so - by inspiring with creativity. That makes this particular corporation a successful one to its purpose. Money will simply be a tool to reach more people.
As for my book - the only way a sizeable audience could ever connect with it is for people to read it. The Island of Yellow does not currently have an ISBN, or any marketing money spent on it at all. I made a decision when I put the book together after years of it sitting idle to allow the book to EARN its commercial success. Do you know why I did that? Because I knew that few people would actually care about the specific story I was writing about and would not pay a dime to hear it, except for the few that shared the same feelings as I do. The book is also very personal to me, and for those who read it they often say it speaks loads about my personality and who I am at my core. If you really want to understand whether or not I have too much of an ego, or am simply trying to impress people - PLEASE read the book.
Jesus Christ as a hero on my MySpace page? To say Jesus Christ is my hero does not necessarily imply that I am Christian. I’m not, and I would want to be beaten to a pulp or run over by a car before I ever called myself that again. I’m a religious scientist, and I follow the belief in Science of Mind, created by Ernest Holmes in the 1920’s. Jesus Christ is someone I consider to be a powerful spiritual leader, and one who probably knew more than anyone in terms of spiritual knowledge. SoM is a belief that coincides with subject reality, and in subjective reality - happiness can be your shining beacon for which to aspire to. And is holiness unhappy? If it is, I never want to be holy.
What would you suggest a better name for this blog to be? Scott Free Thinking was something I came up with in a quick flash and I thought it had a great ring to it, but what would work better? You’re spending a lot of time criticizing my pride, but what could I do to make things better? This is what I deal with on a consistent basis - people usually just say, “this sucks,” rather than taking the time to tell me what could be done better. I had to talk to at least a dozen people the first time I finished a short film to actually get a specific piece of advice from them. Virtually everyone I talk to would just say, “I don’t know what could be done to improve it, I just don’t like it.” Why? “I don’t know, I just don’t…” So, please, tell me - what can be done?
Comment from Taos
Time: May 16, 2007, 5:57 pm
How about, ScottsNotThinking.com Self-deprecating is a sign of confidence AND humilty if done in good humor. Though, you could get people seeing ScottSnotThinking.com!!! Or you could do scottbusyliving.com, a more positive vibe. Or just keep with what you’ve got and put a little side note on your about page.
P.S. - Jesus claimed to be the son of God. But if you don’t believe that, one of your heroes is a big fat liar or a crazy man!
Peace
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