Dementia robs us of everything that matters. Our memories. Our connections. Our story. Every three seconds, another person in the world hears the devastating news that they have dementia. No wonder, then, that it is the most feared condition among people aged over 55.
But, after decades of relentless research across the globe, that is all set to change.
Investments in dementia research are finally leading to breakthroughs, as life-changing treatments that may slow the progression of Alzheimer’s come within close reach. And we’re understanding more and more about how we can reduce our risk of developing dementia. This progress is mirrored by active and growing investment in drug development in the field of neurology around the world, which is fueling further innovation and drug discovery.
For a field that has seen no progress since the 1990s, when symptomatic drugs in the form of cholinesterase inhibitors were introduced, it certainly does feel that the time to turn the tide on this devastating condition has finally arrived.
The power of recent scientific discoveries, coupled with lessons from a litany of past research failures, means there is now a new sense of urgency on both sides of the Atlantic. We now need to see action on two fronts: to reduce the number of people affected by dementia in the future, and to minimize its impact on those who do develop the condition.
But this action demands a seismic shift in the way our health systems approach dementia care. This will take time and resources, so health systems and physicians need to be supported to manage this change.
The current state of play
In the past year, we’ve seen the arrival of the Alzheimer’s drug lecanemab (Leqembi) into U.S. healthcare and more recently, in Japan and China. A second Alzheimer’s drug, donanemab, is rapidly following suit, and, regulatory decisions from several countries are expected over the coming months.
Although the benefits of these drugs are modest, and with significant side effects for some, it nonetheless marks the arrival of a new wave of treatments that can slow the course of Alzheimer’s disease rather than just treating its symptoms. It’s a new dawn for dementia, signaling a step-change in the way it will be perceived and diagnosed.
Despite this success, we don’t have a straightforward path ahead to rapid, equitable access to these drugs once they are licensed. Work supported by the Davos Alzheimer’s Collaborative is highlighting shared challenges while acknowledging country-specific obstacles linked to healthcare infrastructure, demographics, and clinical practices. For many countries, the current state of play is going to make accessing these treatments practically impossible in the short term.
When your kids get down and dirty in the kitchen, not only do they learn about food but they also have fun! It’s even more fun when they get to eat what they have prepared with their own two hands. Parents and caregivers can use this moment to show kids how to increase the nutritional value of their lunches. Here are several best practices when showing kids how to create well-rounded meals.
Add calcium. Pediatric nutrition expert Malina Malkani, MS, RDN, CDN and author of Safe and Simple Food Allergy Prevention reminds parents to include a good source of calcium at lunch. “As kids exit the toddler years, calcium intake tends to decrease. According to data from NHANES, 49% of children between ages 4-18 are not meeting their daily needs for this essential, bone-building nutrient.”1 Yogurt, cheese, kefir, cottage cheese, edamame, fortified soy milk, and chia seeds all offer a good amount of calcium in lunch foods that are easy to pack.
Include a combination of protein, fiber, and fat. These three nutrients—whether including all or some of them at a meal—”can help slow the rate of digestion and prevent the dips and spikes in blood sugar that lead to low energy, irritability, and lack of focus,” explains Malkani.
Let the child choose between two options. Jill Castle, MS, RDN is the founder of The Nourished Child and author of Kids Thrive at Every Size: How to Nourish Your Big, Small, or In-Between Child for a Lifetime of Health and Happiness. Castle recommends providing your child with two options when negotiating foods to pack for lunch. For example, you can include both strawberries and a clementine that way they can select which one they prefer during their lunch.
Choose at least four food groups to pack for lunch. Castle provides the example of turkey and cheese on whole grain bread paired with grapes and pretzels. There are endless possibilities, but teach your child to count the foods that come from each food group.
Let your child do the work: Castle says letting your child do most of the work “will encourage their independence, [teach them to] engage with hands-on tasks, and [help them] learn while doing.”
Use a school lunch planner: Another smart tip from Castle is to create a school lunch planner. “A planner can help you map out a week of lunch meals with input from your child, and make the process of lunch packing easier.”
Use after-school snack time wisely: Castle says to take advantage of this time for discussing, planning, and preparing for the next day’s lunch ideas.
Nutritious Ingredients to Stock Up On
Start with simple recipes that focus on nutritious ingredients when your kids are younger and build on their skills as they evolve in the kitchen. Consider stocking up on these ten nutritious ingredients that are simple for young kids to meal prep for lunch.
Frozen, shelled edamame: Thaw and have your kids pack it as a side or snack, they can also use it as a base for “hummus” when they’re ready to use the blender.
Chia seeds: Your child can mix chia seeds into yogurt parfaits, use it as a base for a nutrient-rich pudding, toss it into salads, or sprinkle it into nut butter sandwiches.
Yogurt tubes or pouches: Include this grab-and-go food as a calcium-rich side or base for yogurt parfaits that kids can assemble during lunchtime if they prefer not to assemble in advance. You can also try freezing a yogurt pouch in advance as it helps to keep the rest of the packed foods cold and it will still be chilled by the time kids are ready to eat them.
Peanut butter or nut-free butter (like sunflower, yellow split pea, soy): Use nut butter for sandwiches or as a topping for toast or bagel. You can also have your child melt nut butter in the microwave and drizzle it on plain yogurt, or they can mix it with soy sauce and toss with warm noodles.
Eggs: Either purchase hard-cooked eggs for younger kids or older kids can learn to boil them stovetop. Use for an egg sandwich with cheese and ham.
Pasta or noodles: Pasta is simple to make for older kids who know how to use the stove (or you can pre-cook them for younger kids). Kids can toss the pasta with chopped veggies to create a cold salad, or they can toss with a tomato, Alfredo, or vodka sauce for a hot lunch (and bring it to school in a thermos). You can also show them how to serve it plain or with butter for picky eaters.
Cheese: Have your child add slices to sandwiches or pack some cheese as a side in their lunchbox. Shredded cheese can be sprinkled over veggies and cubes can be skewered with fruit.
Carrots: Kids can choose from sliced canned carrots, baby carrots, or peeled and sliced carrots. It’s a simple side to add to lunches, and a veggie that kids love to dip.
Mandarins or clementines: These easy-to-peel fruit are a simple snack even for the littlest hands and can help add fiber and vitamin C to their diet.
Raisins: Dried fruit has a long shelf-life and is easy to grab and pack in any lunch box. It can be topped over yogurt or eaten right out of the mini box.
Henry, a carpenter in his late 50s who worked for a small business, had been making and refinishing furniture for years. Then he started having difficulty using tools. The quality of his work rapidly declined, and eventually, he was fired. At home, his wife grew frustrated with him for forgetting their conversations. He was not doing a good job with chores such as loading and unloading the dishwasher.
Henry went to see a doctor, who referred him for cognitive testing. The results came back “invalid.” Among the potential diagnoses the neuropsychologist came up with was “malingering”—basically faking his cognitive impairment. The specialist apparently did not anticipate that someone so young might have dementia. As a result, Henry’s application for disability benefits was denied.
By the time Henry walked into my clinic at Washington University in St. Louis, he and his family were confused and desperate. His wife thought perhaps Henry was being lazy and didn’t want to work or help around the house. But he seemed to struggle with simple tasks, such as dressing himself, and his problems were getting worse. She was worried.
As a cognitive neurologist, many patients come to see me because they’ve noticed subtle changes in their memory and thinking. Their major question is, “Do my symptoms represent the beginning of a progressive neurological illness like Alzheimer’s disease?” The answer is often not clear at their first visit, even after I take a detailed history, do brain imaging, and check routine blood work. Mild problems with memory and thinking are relatively common and can have many causes, such as poor sleep, stress, sleep apnea, various medical conditions, and certain medications.
When patients with subtle changes in memory and thinking come to our clinic and the cause is unclear, a common strategy has been “cognitive monitoring”—watching patients over time to see if their problems get better, stay the same, or get worse. Some patients improve after interventions such as stopping a medication or starting treatment for sleep apnea. Some patients continue to experience cognitive difficulties but never really worsen. And some patients progressively decline until it becomes clear that they have a neurological disorder. Which leads to another difficult question: Are their symptoms caused by Alzheimer’s disease?
Clinicians define dementia as a decline in memory and thinking that affects a patient’s function in everyday activities. There is a continuum of dementia, from being unnoticeable by people who do not know the patient well to causing complete dependence on others for dressing, bathing, eating, toileting and other simple tasks. Dementia, particularly when very mild, can have many causes, some of which are treatable. Alzheimer’s is the most common cause of dementia in patients older than 65 years. It is characterized by specific brain changes, including the deposition of amyloid plaques. These brain changes slowly worsen over time and can be detected 10 to 20 years before the onset of symptoms.
Not long ago, it was impossible to know for sure whether a patient with cognitive impairment had Alzheimer’s disease or some other cause of dementia without an autopsy. In recent years, we have vastly improved our diagnostic capabilities. We can now offer blood tests that can enable earlier and more accurate diagnoses of large numbers of people.
Spinal taps and amyloid PET scans
In 2012, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved amyloid PET scans, which can reveal the presence of the amyloid plaques characteristic of Alzheimer’s disease and which are thought to initiate a cascade of brain changes that culminate in dementia. In 2022, the FDA approved the first test for Alzheimer’s disease that measured amyloid proteins in the cerebrospinal fluid or CSF.
For more than a decade, neurologists like me had been using CSF tests to determine whether patients with cognitive impairment were likely to have Alzheimer’s brain changes. While neurologists perform spinal taps to collect CSF to test for a variety of conditions, and it is safe and well-tolerated, most people have never had a spinal tap and it may seem scary. Even if the CSF testing provides a more certain diagnosis, patients often aren’t interested in having a spinal tap unless it has a major impact on their care. Patients will ask, “If I test positive, is there anything you would do differently?” For years, in most cases, I have said, “Probably not,” and that I would still treat them with the same medications and follow them in the same way. For this reason, we didn’t do many tests for Alzheimer’s—as my patients put it, “There’s nothing we can do about it anyway.”
My boyfriend and I have a toddler together and he has an 11-year-old daughter that lives with her maternal grandmother half of the time. Her mother is serving a serious prison sentence. My boyfriend tries to make it up to his daughter by fawning all over her when she is here—kisses, cuddles, and a constant shower of gifts.
Around our child, he acts bored and irritated. He barely interacts with our baby unless he has his phone in his hand. The only routine he does is bath and bedtime because I have night classes online. He claims that I am making stuff up and just spoiling our child. We had a huge fight because our baby had a growth spurt and needed new clothes. My boyfriend claimed he was broke until his next paycheck. The very next day his daughter came in with bags of new clothes from the mall! She just got an entire new wardrobe two weeks ago for the start of school. My boyfriend claimed he just found the money and that it wasn’t a big deal. I am dressing my baby and myself in stuff I find in buy-nothing groups and yard sales.
My mother never wanted me. She favored my brothers and treated me like a bother growing up. I never want to put our child through that. I loved how devoted my boyfriend was to his daughter. I thought he would be the same with our child. I can’t afford to leave. I take care of 90% of all the household chores. What do I do here? My boyfriend tells me I am acting as though I am jealous of his daughter. I am not. The difference between how he treats her and our child is like night and day.
—Worried
Dear Worried,
It’s clear to me that you are not “jealous of his daughter,” though I do believe you may be envious of the support she receives from your boyfriend. You don’t write anything negative about the child or about your perception of her, you focus on his behavior, and that indicates to me that the issue isn’t how much he gives to her, it’s how little you and your daughter receive at all. You don’t want to be treated like her, you want to be treated like he cares about you, and your child as well. Telling you he doesn’t have enough money to help clothe you, or your child, then “finding” enough to take his daughter on a shopping spree is a wild thing to do, and you deserve better.
Because you mention not being wanted by your own mother, and now this fear that your child will ultimately be rejected by their father, I think it might be useful to talk to someone, a therapist or mental health professional, who can help you process some of those lingering past hurts. When you grow up feeling unwanted, the hardest thing to develop is self-trust. But you can learn to trust yourself, and you can teach the same to your child. If the worst case scenario happens, and they are rejected by their father, they will have you.
.
Photo illustration by Slate. Photos by Getty Images Plus.
Scientists are still learning about the causes of Alzheimer’s, but most agree that many factors contribute to an individual’s risk of getting the disease. Some risk factors, such as age and genes, are inescapable.Others can be modified with lifestyle changes, such as exercise and nutrition—in one study, participants were able to reduce their risk of getting Alzheimer’s by 60 percent. Although most risk studies focus on dementia in general, here are important findings about the known risk factors as they apply to Alzheimer’s.
.
Joelle Bolt
Katie Peek and Joelle Bolt; Sources: Risk factor relative importance: G. Livingston et al., The Lancet, 396, 413 (2020); normal brain aging: “Alzheimer’s Disease and Other Dementias,” Mayo Clinic, 2020
As someone who has spent most of his professional life studying how children develop, I’m often asked by parents (especially mums) why children (especially boys) are prone to pick up the nearest stick, pencil, soft toy or even banana and turn them into weapons?
Girls certainly do this too. But research – and parents’ experience – shows you’re more likely to find boys using various objects as swords, guns or grenades to attack one another.
While some parents worry this is too violent, these actions do not mean you are raising a burgeoning psychopath. Rather, they are significant components of healthy development.
Playful aggression
Role playing is a key part of children’s play, when they pretend to be someone or something else. They can do this on their own or with others.
When they do it with others it is called “sociodramatic play”. This type of play teaches children both verbal and social skills while they interact with others.
Play fighting is one form of sociodramatic play. It can include rough and tumble play, chasing one another around, superhero play, wrestling and mock fighting. Psychologists call this “playful aggression”.
This kind of play is not about hurting anybody. Rather, it provides opportunities for children to explore their world with a sense of empowerment and control (because they set the rules) and to build relationships as they negotiate the play.
How does it work?
Imagine children are playing a battle with pillow forts and cardboard swords. This is not just a question of whose fort topples first. The game will require them to read facial expressions, express themselves and develop an awareness of power dynamics (or what researchers call “relationships hierarchies”).
Relationship hierarchies are complex, but focus on power and who is in charge. During episodes of playful aggression, this might mean taking control, giving in to someone else’s idea, or sharing power. These hierarchies allow children to make decisions about who they want to play with, who to avoid, or how to adapt their behavior to create friendships.
So relationship hierarchies play an important role in emotional and social development. They teach children how to get along with one another, how to make and play within a rule structure, and how to recognize the difference between playful and harmful behavior.
For example, other children’s reactions during the game will teach them that yelling and jumping may be considered fun. But rough pushing or deliberately breaking rules – such as turning into a killer dragon when everyone else has agreed to be tigers – is not OK and will make your friends unhappy.
Why do we see this more in boys?
You might be wondering why such behaviors seem to be more evident in boys than girls. Research shows boys (on the whole) tend to be more physical in how they play.
Their play often focuses on themes related to power and dominance and playful aggression is the perfect way to experiment with these themes.
Theories about sex differences in social play extend across many research areas including psychology, neurobiology, evolutionary psychology and anthropology. Current theories link these differences to testosterone and differences in neurochemistry.
There is some evidence to suggest boys and girls are socialized differently in relation to being physical.
However, the degree of influence is contestable, given sex differences in behavior appear very early in life and in other mammals. Perhaps the socialization process exacerbates nature – and as such, nature and nurture may be working in tandem.
The end result is still the same, with more boys than girls engaging in playful aggression.
When girls role play, it tends to focus on what researchers call “tend and befriend” or on people and nurturing. For example, games built around families or looking after pets.
But this is not to say girls can’t be aggressive. However, research suggests if girls fight, it is usually done with words to hurt someone’s feelings and children are upset with each other. It is not done for fun.
Perhaps this is why playful aggression can be difficult for some mothers to understand and appreciate.
But there is no link between playful aggression in children and being aggressive as an adult.
While there are plenty of things that teenagers worry about, dementia isn’t normally one of them. Yet one new major Alzheimer’s drug trial is recruiting people as young as 18 to answer what may be the most pressing question facing the field: Can the ravages of the disease be prevented by identifying those on track to get it and treating them up to 10 years before they show symptoms?
The recent arrival of drugs that slow the cognitive decline of Alzheimer’s in many people is a welcome breakthrough, but so far their efficacy has only been demonstrated in people with mild symptoms. By the time patients are diagnosed, their brains have already undergone extensive changes. But growing evidence suggests that taking the drugs well before that damage has occurred could significantly slow the disease and possibly even stop it in its tracks.
“Now we have drugs that can slow the disease by 30 percent or so in people with symptoms, but that’s not good enough,” says Reisa Sperling, a neurologist who heads the Center for Alzheimer Research and Treatment at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston. “We want to get to 100 percent, and that means preventing people from getting to the symptomatic stages.”
Earlier and earlier
In medicine, treating a disease when it is causing pathological changes in the body, but hasn’t yet progressed far enough to cause clinical symptoms, is known as secondary prevention. (Primary prevention is heading off a disease before there is any pathology, and tertiary prevention is managing symptomatic disease to slow the worsening of symptoms.) Secondary prevention has been essential to medicine’s triumphs in reducing the risks of death and disability for those with early heart disease or diabetes. Doctors don’t wait for someone to have a heart attack before prescribing a cholesterol-lowering statin or for someone to suffer artery or kidney damage before putting them on metformin to control blood sugar.
In 2023, the results of trials of lecanemab (brand name Leqembi) and donanemab on Alzheimer’s patients with mild cognitive impairment suggested that medicine may now have the tools to bring secondary prevention to bear on the disease. Both drugs are monoclonal antibodies that target the hardened clumps of protein called amyloid plaque that form in the brains of Alzheimer’s patients.
Although much is still unknown about the mechanisms of Alzheimer’s, there is little question now that the buildup of plaque precedes symptoms by many years. In the lecanemab and donanemab trials, the earlier patients were along the long road to plaque buildup, the better the drugs did in removing most of the plaque and slowing cognitive decline. “It’s when you remove nearly all the plaque with one of these drugs that you see the real benefits in terms of symptoms,” says Randall Bateman, a physician and professor of neurology at Washington University School of Medicine.
Because patients with even mild symptoms already have a large buildup of plaque, testing the notion that plaque-fighting drugs can be more effective earlier in the buildup process means enlisting presymptomatic patients for trials. “Studies are moving toward people who are just at the borderline for being positive for plaque and treating them to try to keep them from accumulating more of it and from having symptoms,” says Susan Abushakra, a physician and researcher who is vice president of clinical development and medical affairs at Alzheimer’s-focused biotech company Alzheon in Framingham, Mass.
With growing concerns about the dangers of social media for adolescents, Instagram has rolled out Instagram Teen Accounts. It’s an attempt to offer more protection for the younger generation scrolling through the platform.
Starting today, any teen who signs up for Instagram—and teens already on the app—will automatically be placed under specific settings. The Instagram Teen Accounts also aims to allow parents to have more oversight and involvement in what their teen does on social media.
“These built-in protections really focus in on the biggest concerns that parents have raised,” Antigone Davis, Meta’s Global Head of Safety, tells Parents. “These include the content that their teen is seeing, the people with whom their teen is connecting, and the time they’re spending on their phones.”
So, what does that mean exactly, and will it have a positive impact on teens using social media?
What Are Instagram Teen Accounts?
All teens will be placed under several protective settings. Teens under 16 will need permission from their supervisor account—aka a caregiver—in order to change any of these baseline protections. Caregivers can approve requests from their own device. If desired, parents can also setup supervision for their kids 16 and above.
“We know that parents are interested in playing a more significant role in their teens’ lives online, from our consultation with them,” says Davis. “And so we’ve also built out some additional features within our supervision tools.”
Here’s what caregivers and their teens can expect:
Private accounts: All teens 16 and under will be placed in private account mode. This means only those who follow them will be able to view their content and interact with them. Plus, they will need to manually accept new followers.
Stricter messaging settings: Teens will only be able to get messages from their current connections or people they follow.
Restrictions on sensitive content: New users under 16 will be placed in the “Less” setting on Instagram, while those already on the platform will be sent a prompt encouraging them to choose that setting. The “Less” setting aims to reduce the sensitive content a teen may come across while scrolling the app, such as through Reels, Search, Explore, Hashtag Pages, Feed Recommendations, and Suggested Accounts.
Interactions will be limited: People who teens follow will only be able to tag them or mention them. The “Hidden Words” feature will also be turned on. That filters offensive words and phrases from comments and direct messages (DM).
Break reminders: After 60 minutes of app use, teens will be encouraged to close it. Teens over 16 can extend this “Daily Limit” feature, while those younger will need parental permission.
Sleep mode: This is a new feature, and teens will be placed on “Sleep Mode” from 10 p.m. to 7 a.m. It replaces the “Quiet Mode” and “Night Nudges” features and will stop notifications at night. If caregivers want to prevent teens from using Instagram completely at night, they can do that through the supervision tool.
Choosing topics of interest: This other new feature allows teens to see more content about topics they choose. They’ll start seeing those topics on Explore and in-Feed Recommendations.
Monitoring of interests: Parents will also be able to see the topics their teen has selected to see more of.
Tracking of teen messaging: Parents will now be able to see who their teen has been messaging, although they will not be able to read the messages.
It would be hard to imagine any one person who’s had more of an impact on public health than Bill Gates. Much of the wealth he amassed as founder of Microsoft has gone to charity—according to Fortune, he is one of only five billionaires to have given away more than 20 percent of his wealth. In 2023, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, which he started with his former wife, Melinda Gates, spent more than $8 billion of its more than $70-billion endowment.
Gates has focused his philanthropy largely on some of the most intractable health problems, such as malaria, HIV/AIDS, and childhood vaccination. In recent years, he has turned to Alzheimer’s disease, starting with diagnostics and more recently expanding to proteomics and healthcare programs related to the disease. Scientific American Custom Media asked him about Alzheimer’s:
SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN CUSTOM MEDIA: What sparked your interest in Alzheimer’s? How has your personal experience with the disease contributed to your decision to get involved?
Gates: Like many people, I have a personal connection to Alzheimer’s. My dad died from Alzheimer’s, so I understand first-hand what a cruel disease it is, and how difficult it can be to watch a loved one suffer with it. We were fortunate to have the resources to provide my dad with excellent care, and our family is grateful for the wonderful caregivers who helped him in the 13 years he lived with the disease. But for the majority of families battling Alzheimer’s, this is not an option. Caregiving most often falls to a spouse or a child, which can be overwhelming.
The financial burden of the disease is easier to quantify than the emotional cost. The lifetime cost of care for Alzheimer’s and other dementias is rapidly increasing in the U.S., Japan, Europe, and other countries. According to the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, the global cost will exceed $1.6 trillion by 2050 and represent nearly one-third of all healthcare spending. Unlike those with many chronic diseases, people with Alzheimer’s incur long-term care costs as well as direct medical expenses. If you get the disease in your 60s or 70s, you might require expensive care for decades.
As I spent time learning about Alzheimer’s and the research into it, I came to understand the challenges. The brain can’t be sampled easily or often, for example, and the blood-brain barrier is a double-edged sword—it both protects the brain and makes it harder for treatments to get in.
Even so, as I learned about all the innovation in this field, I grew optimistic about the ability to make progress toward treatment and eventually a cure. This is a frontier where we can dramatically improve human life. It’s a miracle that people are living so much longer today, but longer life expectancies alone are not enough. People should be able to enjoy their later years—and we need a breakthrough in Alzheimer’s to fulfill that.
As someone who takes a bird’s- eye view of major health issues, how would you describe the current outlook for Alzheimer’s research and clinical practice?
After decades of negative clinical trials and dozens of failed therapies, researchers are making progress on both diagnostics and therapeutics.
Blood-based diagnostics are advancing rapidly—the first blood test for Alzheimer’s, PrecivityAD, was launched in late 2020. A few others have followed since, but we are looking forward to the first FDA-cleared blood tests on the horizon. Once this becomes a reality, the next hurdle will be ensuring these tests are used properly, accessible, and available to the patients that need them, and that we understand how these tests work in different patient populations.
It’s easy for parents to attribute their child’s poor behavior to a friend who they believe is a “bad influence.” Kids often get into trouble in pairs or groups, so there’s generally someone there to take the blame. And criticizing someone else’s child allows parents to hold onto the belief that their own child is fundamentally “good” — that they wouldn’t have engaged in the misbehavior were it not for the influence of their peer.
There are a couple of problems with this line of thinking. By characterizing children as intrinsically good or bad, parents run the risk of leading their children to believe that they are bad people when they do something wrong. Instead, viewing all children as essentially good people who sometimes make poor decisions allows kids room for personal growth.
In addition, parents generally follow up the naming of a friend as a bad influence with a prohibition on spending time with that friend — and new research shows that this approach tends to backfire.
Why banning a friend who is a “bad influence” doesn’t work.
We know that as kids move into middle school, they tend to place increasing value on the opinions of their peers as they try to find their place in the social landscape.
“As children get older, their peers become more and more prominent in their physical lives and their psychological lives,” Cristine Legare, a professor of psychology at the University of Texas at Austin, told HuffPost. The impact of peer influence is very real, and can lead to kids making dangerous choices.
Research has consistently shown, for example, that teen drivers are more likely to get into a car accident when there are other passengers in the car, particularly when those passengers are their peers. In 2022, 56% of teens who died in car crashes were in cars being driven by another teen. This is one of the reasons most states now have graduated license requirements that restrict who else can be in the car when a teen is driving. These changes are credited with a substantial decrease in the number of teen car crashes. Without friends in the car, teen drivers are less likely to speed or take their eyes off the road.
The reasons that teens are more likely to do something “wrong” when they are with their peers, as opposed to alone or with their parents, are both social and biochemical.
Film and Writing Festival for Comedy. Showcasing best of comedy short films at the FEEDBACK Film Festival. Plus, showcasing best of comedy novels, short stories, poems, screenplays (TV, short, feature) at the festival performed by professional actors.
Joey Guidone/Theispot
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Joelle Bolt
Katie Peek and Joelle Bolt; Sources: Risk factor relative importance: G. Livingston et al., The Lancet, 396, 413 (2020); normal brain aging: “Alzheimer’s Disease and Other Dementias,” Mayo Clinic, 2020
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Tony Healey
Mistakes
James' World 2 