Culture of celebrity hurting teens

Researchers wrestling with the anti-social and other harmful behaviours of the nation's teenagers say young people are being too much influenced by media focused on "celebrity" behaviour.

"Many parents have major difficulties in working out how to put boundaries on their children's behaviour," Prime Minister John Key's chief science advisor, Sir Peter Gluckman, said today in a personal assessment of the issue.

"They are understandably scared that their attempts to set boundaries will lead to greater rebellion and greater risktaking behaviour".

But Sir Peter said in a letter to Mr Key that the status of families and teachers as role models and definers of boundaries had been largely usurped for many young people by a media that focused on celebrity behaviour, in particular behaviour that might be regarded in normal society as "antisocial at best and harmful at worst".

Death rates of New Zealand children have been shown to double between middle childhood and late adolescence: Teenagers are more likely than adults to abuse alcohol, smoke cigarettes, use illicit substances, commit antisocial acts, and drive recklessly or while intoxicated.

Big changes in how education and other services are offered by the community may be needed to help young people make their way through this dislocated environment, "as control of media content is essentially impossible in the electronic world".

Television, internet, cell phones, texting, and Twitter all provided young people with the ability to form and maintain complex social networks, with risks as immature brains attempted to manage the consequences.

These changes in how people communicated with each other, in the sources of authority and the definitions of acceptable behaviour had been profound, said the report Sir Peter sent to Mr Key. There was evidence that children who have been maltreated were more susceptible to the detrimental effects of exposure to "violent media".

The letter accompanied a preliminary report on the task facing a group of 10 experts Sir Peter has pulled together to analyse the multi-dimensional impacts of earlier onset of puberty in children in modern times as increased complexity in society either triggers or exposes the limits of brain maturation in adolescents.

"Recent research shows that components of brain function that promote judgement rather than risktaking behaviour do not fully mature until well into the third decade of life," said Sir Peter. Changes in social structure, and in particular in family structure, had happened so quickly that traditional intergenerational transfer of knowledge had been lost from many parts of society.

"There is no body of folkknowledge that can give parents and families the tools they need," said Sir Peter, who is noted for his research showing that improved nutrition has advanced the age of onset of puberty in children to very young ages, similar to stone age societies.

Modern girls are hitting puberty up to two years earlier than in the 1960s, and some children are sexually mature at 10 or 11. At the same time, societal changes mean acting-out behaviours such as binge drinking, illicit drug use, unsafe sex and criminal offending "are increasingly likely to occur" among teens.

- NZPA