Today’s teenage population tends to encounter many different experiences — as well as behavior—than older generations have, such as our parents and the elderly. Due to this, many misconceptions seem to become intertwined with one another, overall bringing up assumptions along with misconceptions regarding teenagers. This can sometimes become frustrating, according to students.

“They believe all of us just want to play video games all day but they don’t realize that some of us actually work hard and attempt to have a successful future,” William Berry said.

Granted some teenagers are glued to a screen, there are many of us who go to school, work, and partake in extracurriculars full-time in hopes of a successful outcome. When there is a moment of downtime, we are perceived as “lazy” or “unproductive,” when many adults don’t know what we do in a day, and just assume.

“They believe that our generation doesn’t have speaking skills,” Autumn Garza said. “They think we only understand the academic side of the world, but don’t know how to communicate with each other in the real world due to the internet. Technology plays a major role in our daily lives, however not every teenager is just sitting on their phone or computer.”

Many teenagers are seen as immature and uneducated on how to properly speak to someone depending on the individual/situation. Adults see technology as the only form of communication; however many teenagers go to public schools, jobs, etc. where they have to use proper in-person speaking skills every day. We are seen as unable to communicate in both immature/mature conversations, which is far from the truth.

“They believe that sneaky children have strict parents and that because they did something as a teenager, you will participate in it as well,” Jalyn Finley said.

The way you are raised as a child plays a huge role in whom you become as an adult. However, bad behavior throughout their teenage years is not a genetic trait that is passed down to us. For them to assume we will partake in bad behavior because they did, is hypocritical and unfair to us. I also think it is unfair for adults to blame a parent if their child does something wrong. Sneaky children do not mean strict parents.

“They believe that teenagers have it extremely easy and don’t have much to stress about,” Averee Gallatin said.

Many adults think that teenagers are overdramatic about what they stress about or to what extreme they stress. Just because we don’t have to worry about paying bills or doing “adult things,” doesn’t mean that we aren’t extremely overwhelmed with our own personal lives with school, work, extracurriculars, and overall shifting hormones which brings on a multitude of emotions. Mental health has been on an extreme decline in the adolescent population and it’s important for adults to make sure teenagers are okay instead of comparing lives and stress levels.

Misconceptions regarding the teenage population are very popular. Many times we are looked down upon just because a handful of teenagers act or behave a certain way. There are many independent and strong teenagers who have higher levels of maturity than some adults and vice versa. Just because we are younger, were not less than as human beings.