London, June 2 (IANS) Teenagers get distracted easily because their brains are similar to those of younger children, making them less organised and susceptible to distraction than older people, a study has found.
‘It is not always easy for adolescents to pay attention in class without letting their minds wander or to ignore distractions from their younger sibling when trying to solve a maths problem,’ telegraph.co.uk reported quoting Iroise Dumontheil, one of the researchers from University College London’s Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience.
‘It is not the fault of the teenagers that they can’t concentrate and are easily distracted. It’s to do with the structure of their brains. Adolescents simply don’t have the same mental capacities as an adult,’ he added.
Sarah Jayne Blakemore, who led the study, said teenagers’ brains contain too much grey matter, the parts of the brain that carry messages, which implies that their thought process is more chaotic than that of an adult.
The amount of grey matter in the brain decreases with age, meaning the thought patterns of adults are more efficient and ordered, making the brain work more effectively.
‘What our research has shown is that there is simply too much going on in the brains of adolescents. The result is that their brain energy and resources are wasted and their decision-making process negatively affected,’ said Blakemore.
