Frontline Documentary: Inside the Teenage Brain

Frontline Documentary: Inside the Teenage Brain


This documentary explores the teenage brain, and how it affects their seemingly inexplicable behavior. It attacks topics such as mood swings, sleep deprivation, the desire to be independent, and parenting. Scientists are working to understand the reasons behind their actions through brain scans and experiments involving volunteering teens, children, and adults.

Overall, scientists have discovered that right before and during the teenage years is the biggest change in the brain since early childhood. Teens perceive danger and emotion much differently from adults, because of how their brains are set up and how they are changing. Their brains and hormones can also account for things like mood swings.

Teenagers' main problem is that they feel misunderstood; by their parents, their teachers, and other adults. Most adults are convinced that teens are always looking for trouble, that everything they do is wrong in some way, shape or form. Teens like Charlie O'Donnell claim that they think their parents have forgotten what it is like to be a teen. Parents' seemingly can't relate to their teens and their problems with rules, sleep, ect.

In the documentary, it shows a teenager named Brittany Hosnander, describing her mood swings and relationship with her family. It also shows Nicole Ellis, and her great relationship with her mother, as well as her mood swings, like Brittany.

I think that this documentary was made because parents everywhere have been struggling to raise and understand their teenagers. Teenagers are seen as unpleasant and reckless in the eyes of most adults, and this documentary gives a new perspective on teens and their behavior, so they aren't as misunderstood.

While watching this documentary, I learned a lot about how my brain and the brains of my peers work. I could relate a lot to the teens that were interviewed and followed, especially when they were talking about being misunderstood by their parents. The documentary taught me that sleep is very important for learning and basic function everyday, and that teens are even more different from adults than we thought.