In the 2008 contemporary equivalent to “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off,” “Charlie Bartlett,” Charlie is a social pariah who craves popularity and learns to win friends and influence people by becoming a prescription drug dealer.

Charlie administers Ritalin, Xanax and Prozac, obtained by studying physicians’ reference books, and then visiting psychiatrists, feigning symptoms the doctors are only too quick to treat with medication. In one scene, Charlie and his business partner, Murphy, mass-dispense Ritalin to the student body and turn a dance into a frenzied free-for-all with shirtless girls running down the halls.

While Charlie Bartlett presents teenage recklessness at a near fanatical level, the comedic plot coalesces into a character-driven depiction of teenage angst, idiocy, and haste—a depiction rooted in the importance of social connection amongst teens.

Teens adapt more easily to things than adults do because adolescent behavior creates learning experiences that lead to social opportunity.

Author and journalist, David Dobbs emphasizes that teens seek social rewards, and in engaging in their social inhibitions, teens actually adapt to become more independent.

Teenage brains drive evolution and a decline in social recklessness would risk human growth. A memo to my parents; my behavior that you may perceive to be uninhibited is really an expression of social recklessness—an expression necessitated for the advance of human evolution.

A month ago, I would have laughed at the idea that the risks taken and mistakes made by my peers and me was driving evolution.

As a teenager, I’ve made decisions that went against my best judgment, and I think anyone would be hard-pressed to find a teenager who hasn’t.

The idea that the choices I knew I shouldn’t be making progress human evolution sounds like some psychosomatic theory that, in actuality, doesn’t make any sense.

But, when I read more about the studies, the idea started to click.

Dobbs argues that “teens gravitate toward peers… to invest in the future rather than the past. We will live most of our lives, and prosper (or not) in a world run and remade by our peers. Knowing, understanding, and building relationships with them bears critically on success.”

Although the reckless things teens do amongst their peers may horrify parents and teachers, the fact is that because teen brains embrace a massive reorganization, teens adapt rapidly to new situations.

Teens’ “passion for same-age peers merely expresses in the social realm the teen’s general attraction to novelty: Teens offer teens far more novelty than familiar old family does” (Dobbs).

While the human developmental pattern, completed only in the mid-20s, is uniquely human, and may seem to be one of our most dangerous traits, our adult selves would suffer without having experienced the impulsivity of our teenage recklessness.

Dobbs argues that the “reorganization” that teenage brains undergo makes the entire brain a much faster and more sophisticated organ.

Due to specific differences in their brains, those who sensation-seek—seek excitement and take risks—undergo social growth at a more rapid rate than others.

With this logic in mind, teenage brains, and the recklessness they foster, actually drive evolution.
Cognitive scientist Steven Pinker’s paper, “A History of Violence” for the Edge Master Class of 2011 also focuses on evolution. Pinker’s claim is that violence has been in decline since prehistory.

Pinker’s argument, at first, may seem to contradict the idea that the “jackass gene”—the recklessness that Dobbs argues drives evolution—survives.

However, this recklessness is simply morphing into something less violent—something socially driven.
We are increasingly determined by our social success. Our population growth is exponential, and there is more emphasis on social reward than ever before.

The development of social recklessness was inevitable with the increase in access to our peers.

In some respect, humans need to seek sensation, and, specifically for social sensation.

Social sensation is what ultimately drives modern natural selection. Those who succeed in our increasingly socially defined world put themselves in new social situations.

Ultimately, social impulsivity fosters the spread of ideas and furthers our species. The idea that teenage behavior promotes social impulsivity leads one to conclude that, logically, a decline in teenage behavior would risk human growth.

Because the idea is logical, does that make taking risks okay?

More often than not, the “bad choices” I make don’t seem as dangerous or detrimental to me as they do to my parents and other adults.

Recklessness is an inherent trait of not only my generation, but of the teenage generation that came before me and the one that will succeed this generation of teenagers.

Teenage recklessness shouldn’t be excused, consequences play into the learning process, but it also shouldn’t be stifled.