Understanding the Secret Life of US Teens

Thanks to a new investigation conducted on the so-called “secret life” of American teenagers, experts at the University of California in Los Angeles (UCLA) now have a deeper understanding of what makes today's young adults tick.

Some of the aspects the team looked at included the health, religious beliefs and stigmatization of teens. The new study revealed that all of these aspects either transfer into adulthood, or continue to affect their victims even in adulthood.

For example, numerous studies have suggested that children tend to lose some of their religious beliefs as they grow, especially when they go to college. The UCLA team discovered that this is not the case. All religious ties and beliefs endure in teens as they become adults.

It was also established that being subjected to stress as a teen – such as for example from stigmatization and bullying – is detrimental to individuals' health even as they become adults. Such long-term connections are very difficult to study, but the investigators were able to establish a connection.

One of the most important aspects on which the researchers focused included arguments. According to research leader Andrew Fuligni, the influence that arguments play on environments both at school and at home has been largely overlooked by researchers.

The team was able to observe that conflicts and arguments at school had a tendency to slip into the home environment, making the teens more likely to fight with their parents or siblings. At the same time, fights at home were equally as likely to cause negative social behaviors at school.

“Every parent of a teen knows these years can get a little emotional. So when disagreements occur, we wanted to know if there was a transmission of negative emotions between the two groups,” says Fuligni, a professor of psychiatry at the UCLA Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior.

Details of the new investigation were published in the September–October issue of the esteemed medical journal Child Development. One of the most interesting conclusions was that family fights tended to cause more severe effects than arguments at school.

In the data they analyzed, the investigators noticed effect rippling even 24 to 48 hours after the fight had occurred at home. Even two days later, the teens were still being influenced by the experience.

“Adolescents tend to respond with more extreme and negative emotions than do pre-adolescents or adults, probably because it's the time in their lives when they are experiencing multiple transitions that might be stressful,” the expert concludes.