Teens voting? No way.

(By the way, I know I've already made a post about this before, but whatever, I'll make another one!)

The debate topic I chose was for whether or not teenagers should be able to vote in political elections, as in for president or governor or whether or not a specific bill should be passed. Which side am I on?

No. I definitely think that teenagers should NOT be allowed to vote. Our brains just aren't functioning right yet. I got a lot of my info on the brains of teenagers from this website.

As adults, brains are completely wired up. All these little strings of information, all the different parts that work out what to do, all the complexity. Most of the building of this natural computer is done during the teenage years. During this time, these little wires and loose ends, called synapses, are incredibly chaotic. Not only that, all development starts in the back of the brain- the part that controls reason and common sense is in the front. Which means that, until we're adults, our brains won't have developed enough.

It doesn't stop there. As adults, when we make mistakes, the front part of the brain instantly alerts us and informs us to fix it. So we fix it. As teenagers, since that part of our brain hasn't fully developed yet, we can make severe mistakes in our decision-making and never notice. This is what leads teens to doing drugs, drinking alcohol, throwing massive parties, running away from home, having sex, etc, etc. As adults, we'd never choose to do these kinds of things because our brains would be firing off signals saying, "Hey, wait! That's not right!" This part of our brain doesn't develop until the mid-twenties.

So what does this mean? It means that teenagers are horrible at making decisions and our brains don't alert us to tell us that decision was wrong. So what if a teen made the wrong decision in voting? Teenagers generally just go with whatever their parents say- in their homes they're surrounded by people constantly talking about one certain way of doing things. The TV is probably constantly tuned to the news channel that follows that certain political party the most. It isn't until a person is an adult that they begin thinking outside of their parent's opinions (in most cases, at least). As teens we think of the one side of things at that's that. As adults we think of everything and how it might involve us or the world and what each party is saying, etc...

I do not think that teens should be allowed to vote.