Teenagers Don’t Have The Capacity To Consume Content Conscientiously

r/

Obviously their brains are still growing but I also think it has to do with what stage of life they are in.

I’m speaking from personal experience. When I was a teenager I would consume all types of media with little thought as to what I was consuming and how it would affect me. Gore? “Cool” I said. Edgy humor? “I’m based like that”

It was only after I left home, went to school, and got a real career could I call upon my life experiences and relate them to what I was consuming. I find myself now looking at entertainment and asking how it can affect, what context is this in etc… and I genuinely believe a lot of other adults here can say the same thing happened for them.

I even notice this with friends. Many of them give themselves limits on their phones. They’ll say something like “Okay I’m doomscrolling and watching Skibbidi Toilet, I’m gonna call it a day”

Comments

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  2. SquelchyRex Avatar

    Sounds more like a you thing.

  3. MochaMellie Avatar

    I mean, I feel like this is just empathy? You as a teenager, didn’t stop to think about what that content might mean to others, but as an adult, you do. I feel like most people follow a similar empathy development path (if they develop empathy)

  4. Mathalamus2 Avatar

    agreed, but not because their brains are still growing. they are just not educated enough to make the right choices.

  5. Marithamenace Avatar

    I’ve been consciously consuming media since I could talk and so has everyone I know and grown up with. All children are conscious, we the adults teach them how to relate in the world usually in the same ways we do. If you didn’t grow up perceiving that there’s tons of reasons why.

  6. PaddywackShaq Avatar

    Neither do most adults

  7. Groxy_ Avatar

    Some teenagers can, some can’t. I had the capacity to think by the time I was a teenager, and that applied to content I consumed.

  8. Dead_Woods Avatar

    Yeah. teen-agers are like a big boiling pot of hormones and they dont know whats good and whats bad for them.
    Thats also the age you’re most likely to get addicted to substances or any source of easy dopamine.

  9. halfdecenttakes Avatar

    This is definitely more of an individual problem rather than a teenager problem.

    Everybody I grew up with who thought you could just nuke an entire country and be done with any problems with them are the same exact ones who still believe dumb shit like that.

    The intelligent people I grew up with who were more thoughtful in finding meaning in various media are still doing the same thing.

  10. ODIN________ Avatar

    No one is to this level

  11. Andiamo87 Avatar

    Why every word with a capital letter? 

  12. Hatta00 Avatar

    What consequences are you afraid of? As you said, you consumed gore and edgelord shit and turned out responsible. So what’s the problem?

  13. howjon99 Avatar

    Just actors trying to earn money that day..

  14. Obvious-Water569 Avatar

    Teens online today are operating at a level you and I couldn’t even imagine.

  15. WDeranged Avatar

    It’s ok. They’ll eventually grow up and start consuming Russian propaganda.

  16. bhbhbhhh Avatar

    “Consume content”

  17. BadgerTor Avatar

    Only if you had no one give you a reality tether.  Violence and Gore did not desensitize me because I was taught to disconnect it from reality.

  18. BigDrippinHog Avatar

    Holy alliteration!

  19. HuckleberryFinn3 Avatar

    you can say the same for some adults. It can get worse even

  20. Mioraecian Avatar

    Teens and children in general are extremely prone to indoctrination and social conditioning. It only makes sense that this would apply to media content. I am an advocate of teaching media literacy in high school instead of the very few who take it in college.

  21. Just-a-random-Aspie Avatar

    As I’ve gotten older, I’ve started to care less. Early teens I absorbed more info than I do now. Social media may have worn me out