Are young teens generally stupid?

[MetalJunkie]

Okay, so the title is somewhat misleading. I was watching this interview. Chloe Moretz is being interviewed about playing Mindy/Hit-Girl, and the first thing that struck me was how well-spoken and intelligent she sounds.

Obviously, I don't remember my mindset too well from when I was 13, but something occurred to me. Is this the norm? Am I not giving 13-year-olds enough credit, or is Chloe an exception to the rule?

[ClairvoyantCat]

I think to say young teens are stupid would be a generalization.  However, I'm not going to say most kids that age are nearly that well spoken.  Most kids definitely at least don't try to sound intelligent or genuinely aren't, and by that time you've ended up with about a quarter of the population. 

I mean, hell, I'm 16, and most of my peers aren't nearly as well spoken as she is.  And I mean almost all of them.  It's probably also a decision of how one would want to speak more than a matter of intelligence.  But there's no answers to this question without making a generalization. 
You could probably safely say that she is better spoken than most young teens, though. 

[sonatafanica]

When I was that age I got a lot of compliments for how well spoken I was, so I guess it's not uncommon.



Then I became a vinegar-pissing teenager and stopped caring.

[Jamesman42]

Numbers

[Super Dude]

Numbers

[Ravenheart]

It's a mixed bag. I know plenty of people in my age group that could very easily qualify for Neanderthals. I also know plenty of adult that might as well be stuck in pre-pubescent years. My mother, for instance, is the most immature, childish person I've ever known.

[ThroughHerEyesDude6]

When I was a young teen (I'm assuming we're talking about 13-16 years old), I only knew of a few people my age that were as well spoken and thoughful in their comments as Chloe. One particular example is my friend Alyssa-Marie. To this day, she thinks, and then speaks. She started doing that well before she met me, and she'll just keep on talking in that manner. I find it HIGHLY attractive, but that's besides the point.

Many of the kids I went to school with were not as eloquent and well-versed as they should have been. I think it's a combination of the education system and, what sonatafanatica said: not caring. I know I stopped caring about my speech when I was a Junior in high school. Of course, by that time I let images triumph where words always failed. That, and I was actually good at drawing and painting.

I think the easiest answer to your question is yes, Chloe is the exception, but she is also in acting. She's probably had training with talking during interviews.

[SPNKr]

I wouldn't generalise either.
Most kids are quite intelligent and don't pretend to "be stupid".

It's probably also a decision of how one would want to speak more than a matter of intelligence.  But there's no answers to this question without making a generalization.  

[bosk1]

Anyone who makes the generalization that "teens are stupid" has no clue what they're talking about.  However, one generalization that IS generally true is that teens simply do not have the life experience and wisdom that comes with age.  They also often do not yet have the good judgment that also comes with age, although there are exceptions.  But this has nothing to do with being stupid or not.  Some are incredibly brilliant, just as some of any age group are.

[MetalJunkie]

Anyone who makes the generalization that "teens are stupid" has no clue what they're talking about.

I guess I didn't elaborate well enough with my opening statement. "Okay, so the title is somewhat misleading." The thread title was a joke, but the sole point of this thread lies in the OP, not the title. Is Chloe an exception.

It seems like I've been demeaned by bosk again for having a different opinion. Or maybe not. Apparently I have no clue what I'm talking about.

[Portrucci]

I believe Socrates once said;

Our youth now love luxury. They have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for their elders and love chatter in place of exercise; they no longer rise when elders enter the room; they contradict their parents, chatter before company; gobble up their food and tyrannize their teachers.

You can see that this sort of attitude towards youth is not new, in fact it's been around for at least 2500 years  . Those same disrespectful youths will eventually be the ones complaining about disrespectful youths in their old age. It probably the workings of that very old and predictable human trait, where as soon as we gain some sort of wisdom or insight, we bemoan it's absence in others, even though we ourselves only just acquired it. I find these things have a habit of working themselves out eventually. You might argue, that the youth of today have unprecedented access to technology and information which will surely overload their minds and desensitize their emotions and inevitably turn them into hate-filled robots. Or, they will just adapt. The world will adapt. This next wave will run world one day, and I have sneaking suspicion it's going to do a better job than what's happening now.

Out of the many things I worry about in regards to humanity, fear of a blank planet isn't one of them.

[Gadough]

"they no longer rise when elders enter the room"

Maybe I'm just proving him right by saying this, but...are you fucking serious? Why would I do that? First of all, it would get really tiring having to drop everything and stand at attention whenever an adult enters the room. Secondly, I bet that would make most adults feel awkward.

[73109]

Numbers

Ya know, I could take that as a compliment.

Especially coming from you SD. *double *

[Ultimetalhead]

Stupid people exist in all age groups. Honestly, the friends I have two grades below me are more well-spoken, intelligent, and mature than 95% of my graduating class.

[Metro]

As a former young teen, I can safely say that yes. A lot of us are/were pretty stupid.

[hefdaddy42]

Is Chloe an exception.

Yes.

[Perpetual Change]

People just develop at different paces. I know a lot of people who were very articulate for their age at 13-4. I know people who are even younger than that, like 8 or 9, or seem to be ideal children who are almost "grown up."  But that didn't necessarily carry into adulthood. People change or they just never advance past a certain maturity level. We all kind of lose ourselves during puberty and have to strive to find our way back 

[SPNKr]

"they no longer rise when elders enter the room"

Maybe I'm just proving him right by saying this, but...are you fucking serious? Why would I do that? First of all, it would get really tiring having to drop everything and stand at attention whenever an adult enters the room. Secondly, I bet that would make most adults feel awkward.

Certain cultures, like the muslim culture, do that.
It's another way of respect for them.

[Progmetty]

Well yeah I used to do that but now it's usually enough to just sit up right and have both feet of the floor.

[Super Dude]

Let me put it this way: I distinctly remember being a teen and lamenting on how stupid I perceived my peers to be.  This lasted until I was around 16 or so, when I went to a private school where kids had a reputation for being really smart (and it showed).

[YtseBitsySpider]

good thing Tick didn't start this thread.

[Super Dude]

I don't see how that would've been any different...?

[Sir GuitarCozmo]

Because it's tick.  Anytime tick posts an opinion on something and it has even a SLIGHTLY rough edge to it, people just fucking go off on him for some reason.

[Super Dude]

I can only recall one time that's happened.  I can't remember the thread but I remember it being recent.

[PlaysLikeMyung]

Why was that even brought up? It's not really conducive to the topic at hand...

Anyhoo, I feel like teens are dumber than they USED to be, but are by no means flat out stupid.

[YtseBitsySpider]

Why was that even brought up? It's not really conducive to the topic at hand



................because I like the guy...and it was not so subtle call out to the people who usually Draco Meteor his threads.

[jsem]

Is Chloe an exception.

Yes.

[Space Invader]

It sort of depends how you qualify "intelligent". I mean, if you're from a completely different generation, then sure, you might consider the people younger than you to do "stupid", because their form of knowledge is in a completely different class. Students now have a completely different learning experience than they might have even 10 years ago. Just because they don't have the same knowledge than us, doesn't mean they're stupid.

That being said, I think the quality of communication is decreasing greatly. Kids these days can't express themselves in coherent, grammatically correct English anymore (at least it seems to me). I think part is the issue is a transfer from print to digital. Hell, when I was a teen, I was a heck of a lot more well read than any of my peers, and it showed in my quality of language. I can't even imagine the vocabulary gap for a similar situation now.   

[Chino]

Teens aren't "stupid", they just make poor decisions because their frontal lobes have not fully developed yet.

[EPICVIEW]

I wish I was a stupid teen again..I'm envious.

now Im this super smart older dude..and thats cool and all, but I liked not knowing so much..LOL

[LeeHarveyKennedy]

On the whole, kids today are no dumber than they were when I was that age, or you, or your grandparents.

[Neon]

I don't know about mature, but I've always been pretty well-spoken.  I can remember being in high school and on more than one occasion I would say a certain word and someone would ask me what the word meant.  Now, I am not one of those people who uses big words for the sake of using big words; I don't remember any particular words used but I do remember being like, "Seriously...that's not an uncommon word...how are you this old and you don't know what it means?"  

But in a way I also blame the education system.  I have told this story, but my cousin's husband teaches high school history and he is dead against the "No Child Left Behind" program, because it basically makes it impossible to fail a student regardless of how much effort they put forth or how much they actually understand a topic.  He said he has high school students that can't find New Jersey on a map (and they f'ing live in New Jersey).  I think that is a product not so much of kids being stupid, but I think schools a lot of times skim over the really basic shit...and then you have to take a ridiculously hard SAT but never once do they make students take a common sense test.  

I used to be a manager of retail stores and all of my employees were young girls in the 18-25 range, and some of them were so clueless regarding the simplest shit that I actually felt bad for them.  I had one girl who told me dropped her college geography class because the first day the professor gave them a pop quiz and she couldn't locate anything on the map...you know...countries like Japan and Italy.   I really wonder how the girl made it out of elementary school, let alone graduated high school and went to college.  

[Marvellous G]

This will sound elitist, but it seems that all of us on this forum are in the same boat.

I'm basically astonished at how stupid some people my age, roughly, are (including me a lot of the time, probably). The fact that the average GCSE result in England is SEVEN Cs amazes me, and whilst that doesn't account for intelligence overall, it's a good indication, and coupled with the fact that these people aren't well spoken, and are generally, for lack of a better word, dumb, it paints a pretty bleak picture of teens.

BUT, there are obviously going to be exceptions, as that girl and Numbers prove, so (whilst I know you were only doing so ironically) you can't really criticise the whole age group. Although we do suck.

[TL]

It's not that most teens are stupid; it's that most people are stupid, and teens have less of a filter.

[DarkEternalNight]

I don't know about mature, but I've always been pretty well-spoken.  I can remember being in high school and on more than one occasion I would say a certain word and someone would ask me what the word meant.  Now, I am not one of those people who uses big words for the sake of using big words; I don't remember any particular words used but I do remember being like, "Seriously...that's not an uncommon word...how are you this old and you don't know what it means?"

I had the same thing happen to me the other day. I came with a slogan in marketing class that had the word "euphoria" in it. People were like, "Is that a disease?". I was shocked.