How risk taking changes-Teenage brains-Review
We thought that this Review to be of critical importance owing to the fact that it involves Teens and more particularly Teens from the Western world. The talk was delivered by Kashfia Rahaman, you can view the talk at TED.COM
Through out this Review post, we shall address Kashfia Rahman as speaker.
The speaker assumes that Teenagers are intelligent and then goes on to connect Illicit substance use, speeding, and eating Tide pods to teenage activities, and then further generalizes a correlation with being “Smart, Skilled and Responsible” with “Careless risk taking”.
The entire study is flawed, for the given fact that the study has been carried out among the Peers of the Speaker and then using Social media as a reliable medium for observing Teenage behavior, especially given the notoriety of the Social media for reliability, trust and honesty.
The speaker claims that High risk taking to be causing changes in teenager’s brain, which is in the first place an incorrect and flawed assumption. It is in fact the other way round.
Meaning, it is the underdeveloped Execution functions that cause Turbulent behavior. That is to say that there is always an instinctive tendency to get involved or entertain High risk behaviors due to severe impairment in using the Executive Function Skills.
Executive function skills in most teens develop naturally but to certain teens this becomes a challenge. When we talk about Executive function skills, we mean skills such as, Planning, Organization, Initiatives, Focused attention, Sustained attention, Goal setting, Decision-making, and Problem solving.
In certain teens, developing these skills is often a challenge due to the fact that they suffer from certain Attention disorder.
So these skill sets should be taught using direct instruction method and monitored by experts with teachers accompanying them
We also find the speaker questioning the neuroscience explanation that “Teen brains during the developmental stage are prone to Risk taking”,
The speaker argues that if that would be the Neuroscience’s perspective on Teen behavior, then what about a Child’s brain which is ever more immature than a Teen’s brain and more so still undeveloped.
At this juncture, the speaker makes an erroneous comparison of a Teen’s brain versus a Child’s brain, without considering the environmental phases that exists.
In other words, the speaker fails to see the exposures and subsequent pressure, that a Teen brain is subjected to daily without a jot of rest.
Some of them may be, peer pressure, social media, the print media, the bombardments by adverts, the movies, the stars, etc.
What is more alarming is the fact that the speaker has performed the entire Research on a Bias. Assuming that by “Habituation”, even the worst of the acts becomes, fearless, risk less, and guilt less.
How she arrives at this, we do not know, but what we know is that this bias has predominantly influenced her stand point and that which is clearly visible even in this presentation.
Next, the speaker correlates Self-Control to Logical decision. With the Inference that, Lack of Self control causes teens to engage in greater risk taking behaviors and making more harmful choices.
The flaw here is to connect two altogether different mind based entities and make a flawed conclusion.
Logic is the justification after an Act is committed
Practice of Logical Reasoning leads to Self-Control and not Viceversa
The Speaker concludes with an element of remorse that her participants lacked Self-Control for making logical decision, this adds another count to the already augmenting flaws with which the experiment had been carried out.
The Truth is, It is not the lack of Self control that causes or leads to lack in logical decision making, but, it is the practice of logical decision making that definitely leads to Self control.
Self control is not an overnight walk in the park. Prominent statesmen who changed the course of world history, have confessed that in spite of years of warnings and admonishments, they just couldn’t exercise self control when it came to indulgence in Cigars and Whiskies.
Read this paper, “Improving Self-control by Practicing Logical Reasoning”, by Alex Bertrams and Brandon J.Schmeichel.
The speaker blames the Teen’s developing brain and Habituation (a Bias, that the speaker as willingly accepted and performed the research) to be the cause for the Risk-Taking and Risk –Escalation behavior of Teens
But all of these can merely be considered to be nothing more than speculation and more so lack of Literature Review on the field.
Teenagers today are better behaved than past 3 generations-Research
Just to shed some light. Since 1991, the Federal government runs a program called the “Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance Survey”. More than 10,000 high school students participate every other year in the survey.
The Survey has all sort of questions such as,
Do you engage in Fights in School
Do you use Alcohol
Do you Smoke
Do you Drive in a risky manner
Do you use Drugs
Do you engage in unprotected sex too often.
Analysis of these survey questions shows that today’s teenagers are among the best-behaved on record.
They smoke less, They drink less, and have sex less than the previous generations put together.
Also, they competitive, most focused in schools, want to pursue College education, give back to the community, willingly want to support the aged and deprived, want to run charity programs, they are mild tempered, want to stay off trouble.
A 2013, study found that teen pregnancy had drastically dropped down by 18% in comparison to the past three decades.
In other words, the speaker paints a whole lot of a different picture contrary to existing Research, about the Teens of today, which is sad and disheartening.
Specialized Research Expertise Required
According to Richard Frackowiak, Head of Clinical Neurosciences at the Université de Lausanne in Switzerland (UNIL), Data alone, no matter how extensive and sophisticated, will not be sufficient to achieve the goals of the various brain projects.
We need a very high level of informatics expertise and the Math that goes with that, especially in Machine learning and sophisticated statistical techniques, to deal with the complex models of the human mind.
Simulating the Human mind has been widely criticized by Experts
Simulating the human brain has been criticized widely by many neuroscientists. “It is a worry we may be over ambitious”, conceded Rafael Yuste, Director of the Neuro Technology Centre at Columbia University.
It is also imperative to understand that Brain Simulation, either subjected locally or non invasively can carry with it multiple complexities due to the incomplete understanding of how skin, subcutaneous soft tissue, skull, cerebrospinal fluid, and brain folding gets affected when current spreads.
For example, different brain regions than those intended might be affected and, in some instances, stimulation could impair rather than improve function if the polarity of the stimulation is reversed.
According to Dr Cohen Kadosh, “You can use stimulation that might not be beneficial for you, you need to know how long to stimulate, and at what time to stimulate and what intensity to use.”
Also, Brain stimulation is used in a controlled environment for no more than time period determined on the participant’s health since before a simulation, every participants should pass strict medical checks.
According to Adam Green, and, certainly, anytime there is risk of harm with a technology, the scariest risks are those associated with kids and the developing brain. Adam Green.
Side Effects associated with EEG
Foggy Brain
Nausea
Eye pain
Acute Migraine
Panic Disorder
Depression
Cultural block
The validity of the Research and its inference are questionable and were clearly discussed above. But there is also a Cultural Bias that would have played a big part from the Speaker’s view of the entire Research.
For the Speaker explicitly states that given her Muslim background she found it a real Struggle to fit in the set up. This would mean, it is highly likely that the speaker executed the entire Research as if to paint the picture of irresponsibility and lack of accountability on the Western Teens.
The School has to be held Responsible
Another important question to ask here would be, given the adverse effects EEG has and more so the dangers involved in Brain simulation, why would the School allow such a Research as this to be performed?
Were the Parents of the kids, between the age group mentioned by the speaker, ever aware of the dangers that EEG can have and more so the entire experiment will have on their kids, the after effects, the after latent effects.
How could Students who participated in this Research be treated like this?
The Speaker, during the course of the talk, mentions the participants as Lab Rats, this is clearly the heights of insults and degraded treatment that even Scientists wouldn’t dare to offer to animal participants, these days, but here we see the speaker’s audacity to mention words of demeanor on her Human participants, which raises alarms of good Scientific Practices.
Conclusion
In the Interest of Time, Money and Human Research hours involved, we wish to end this Review here. In all honesty, there are innumerable slips and flaws and inaccurate assumptions and Biases in this research.
To an independent panel of Reviewers, this presentation and the work suggested was carried out solely to tarnish the Western Teens. When research on Western Teen behavioral models are suggesting the exact opposite to the claims of the Speaker.
The irony is Speaker merely bases all of her claims on data obtained from EEG from students in her school [There is no element of a simple Gratitude expressed by the Speaker to the students who risked their future by accepting the EEG] The Speaker then portrays that she is epitome for using positive Risks where as her companion student community represent the model for high Risk behavior and its negative effects. Pathetic indeed.
