Have you ever just kept chatting to your friends even though your mom is calling you for what seems like the hundredth time? If you are a teenager, this is normal. A new study from the Stanford University School of Medicine has shown that around the age of 13, brain activity starts to change, making teens tune out their mom’s voices and start to be more in tune with unfamiliar people’s voices.
The researchers scanned and looked at their brain activity as children, aged 7-16, were made to listen to the voices of their mothers or the voice of an unfamiliar woman. “Adolescents have this whole other class of sounds and voices that they need to tune into,” explains Daniel Abrams, Ph.D., a neuroscientist at the Stanford University School of Medicine in California and clinical associate professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences.
The research, which was published on April 28 in the Journal of Neuroscience, used functional MRI brain scans to give the first detailed neurobiological explanation for how teens begin to tune out the voices of their parents. “Just as an infant knows to tune into her mother’s voice, an adolescent knows to tune into novel voices,” said Daniel Abrams
Even though many parents might not be happy with their teenagers not listening to what they say, this change in brain activity happens for a reason. Teens are programmed to tune familiar voices out, but more importantly, they are programmed to prioritize new voices. But even though teens want more independence, their mom’s voice still has a lot of power. Studies have shown that in stressed-out students who heard their mom’s voice on the phone, their noticeable levels of stress hormones dropped. The same cannot be said for text messages.
So, while both the teenagers and the mom are feeling frustrated about missed text messages, it is a normal response and it’s completely okay. According to Abrams, “This is the way the brain is wired, and there’s a good reason for it.”
Citations
https://grownandflown.com/new-study-teens-tune-out-moms-voice/
https://neurosciencenews.com/teen-voice-attention-20517/
The researchers scanned and looked at their brain activity as children, aged 7-16, were made to listen to the voices of their mothers or the voice of an unfamiliar woman. “Adolescents have this whole other class of sounds and voices that they need to tune into,” explains Daniel Abrams, Ph.D., a neuroscientist at the Stanford University School of Medicine in California and clinical associate professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences.
The research, which was published on April 28 in the Journal of Neuroscience, used functional MRI brain scans to give the first detailed neurobiological explanation for how teens begin to tune out the voices of their parents. “Just as an infant knows to tune into her mother’s voice, an adolescent knows to tune into novel voices,” said Daniel Abrams
Even though many parents might not be happy with their teenagers not listening to what they say, this change in brain activity happens for a reason. Teens are programmed to tune familiar voices out, but more importantly, they are programmed to prioritize new voices. But even though teens want more independence, their mom’s voice still has a lot of power. Studies have shown that in stressed-out students who heard their mom’s voice on the phone, their noticeable levels of stress hormones dropped. The same cannot be said for text messages.
So, while both the teenagers and the mom are feeling frustrated about missed text messages, it is a normal response and it’s completely okay. According to Abrams, “This is the way the brain is wired, and there’s a good reason for it.”
Citations
https://grownandflown.com/new-study-teens-tune-out-moms-voice/
https://neurosciencenews.com/teen-voice-attention-20517/
