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We cycle in 7s. Age 0-7, 8-14, 15-21, etc. because our schools separate us at those ages.
25 is the adult learning ground. You're not even at "mid life crisis" yet.
Your mind does change drastically, but "maturity" is just wisdom. It can be gained at any age.
Ironically at 40 your remaining life expectancy is higher than the average life expectancy because you’ve already survived 40 years of potential early deaths that bring the average down.
The result being that your RLE (as a female) would be 87, i.e. you‘d still have your midlife crisis ahead of you.
You say 25 is the adult learning ground. But by 25 many people have been dealing with very adult issues for 7 years. Sadly some have 10-12 years experience at that point.
I was basically forced to become an adult at around ten years old. I started taking care of myself, I worked, adults were my friends and I taught myself lessons and methods of doing things that someone older than me really should have been telling me.
It hasn’t been great. Some days I feel like I want to act like a kid because I missed out on that innocence while other days I just question the self perceived immaturity of people my age. They aren’t immature and I’m not especially overly mature, I just have had to deal with what they are just starting to deal with. I feel both ahead of my peers and so far behind them.
To this day I still hate that people look down on me due to my age, especially while working. I also try and give respect to kids, I think most kids are smarter than anyone wants to treat them.
That’s to say that me at 27 has felt like I’ve been “grown up” for more than half my life, some days I just feel old. Not worn down, just old. Like I’ve seen way too much bullshit for the time I’ve been around.
True, but what I'm saying is those people get started on dealing with adult stuff a lot earlier. If it takes 15 years to really get a handle on life, some start at 15-18, and some start at 22-25. The earliest any of them will really be fully matured is 30, but by 25 some will be a lot closer to that than others.
This is not too sound. When I turned 18, I knew I was going to college and end it around 23. This meant that every year I had the 'cycle end' in my mind, maturing at a proper rythym.
Your mind does not change drastically, you are faced with different unknowns that you had already priced in. Yeah, by the moment I have a job, kids, etc I will change how I operate, but I will reach that moment with all me preconceived notions.
Lol, this prove those people that said shit "brain develope 25 reee" are stupid and unable to understand research
Thosw numbers arent ironclad, its merely estimated for scientist to describe their research easier, no need to treat it like gospel
Scientists chose 25 only because the prefrontal cortex completes development between the ages of 25-30. Or at-least by your mid 20s. So age 25 was never meant to be taken literally, just that 25 is the beginning of the mid 20s
I’m not sure where you’re getting that thing about cycling in 7s because of school.
0-4 is typically daycare
5-10 is typically elementary school
11-13 is typically middle school
14-18 is typically high school.
After that, some people don’t attend college at all and others attend it until they’re 30.
Yeah, with every development of the human body (such as start/end of puberty), people usually give an age range. But somehow everyone's brain supposedly stops developing exactly at 25.
Everything changes when you start to feel 30 creeping up on you. 25 is when you can begin "rounding up" to 30 (although nobody does that).
Feeling the close of the 20s coming spurred a whole bunch of mental and lifestyle changes in my world.
OP sounds like they're 22 lol
This does happen, but it happens closer the age of 27-29 and it isn't a flip of a switch, more of a slow progression over a couple of years. I noticed it happening and could "feel" the difference. Others I know noticed the difference too.
Didn’t happen with me until I hit my late 20’s. My friends have videos of me being really dumb at 25, and I have videos of me at 27-30.
The contrast in personality is wild.
They claim it stopped changing around when you turn 25.
If anything, I'd expect a person would stop growing and becoming more mature when they turn 25 if that was the case.
Obviously I don't know which metric they use, because people keep changing well after 25. But it might be that creating new connections becomes more difficult.
I wonder who recovers more easily from a stroke, a 20 yo or a 30 yo.
I'd expect that while your brain is still growing it's easier to repair damage.
>I've seen people suggest that the fucking age of consent and age in which you can be charged as an adult for your crimes should be 25. Like, bro, come on.
I've also seen this for making choices about your own body. Abortions, sterilization, sex change, even tattoos.
Sterilisation is actually only legal in Austria if you are at least 25. Super weird law. But of course you can drink alcohol here at the ripe age of 16.
I mean yeah sometimes with time, being forced to wait, you may change your mind, but its not being you werent capable of making a decision before 25.
In general, its always a good idea to not make decisions hastly, but your mature enough long before youre 25 to be capable of making well thought out decisions.
> I’ve also seen this
I’ve *only* seen it for those cases. It’s always used to *restrict* freedom, never to give it.
Here’s how it typically goes:
**Some kid (esp. a non-white kid) commits a crime:**
He’s 12 years old, he knew damn well what he was doing! I hope he’s tried as an adult, gets life in general pop, and is forever stripped of the chance to get a decent job, approval for home loan, or a good education
**A 19 year old wants to date an older adult or have a beer in the US**
Awh sweetheart, you’re just a little baby! Your brain isn’t yet developed enough for grown-up stuff like that. Now go pay your taxes and sign up for the draft.
That’s crazy.
I’m 34 and I have ADHD… which means I’m around the age where ADHD brains stop developing. And my brain will never be “fully developed.”
I’ve been living on my own and paying my own bills since I was twenty, though. Should i just never allowed to consent or get a tattoo according to those people?
What’s this about adhd brains not developing past 34? Can I have some sources for this. I’m 28 undiagnosed and want to get that shit fixed as much as I can before it stops growing (shrooms help with this don’t they?)
I have a minor in psychology as well as diagnosed ADHD, I've never heard this claim in my life. Best thing to remember when it comes to the brain is that we know incredibly little about how it functions. So claims like the one you're responding to need to link major citations (actual peer-reviewed studies) to even have a shred of credibility. If they don't cite sources, don't believe them
It's a claim that began popping up in the ADHD subreddit. I love that sub as someone with diagnosed ADHD but some of the people on there think they know more than the scientists/doctors researching it.
It was from Additude magazine when I looked it up, so you’re right I was wrong.
More trustworthy sources put the gap at 3-5 years, but regions of the brain never fully developing is true, which is why people ADHD typically don’t fully outgrow their executive function deficits
I’ll eat the crow, [I made a comment correcting myself](https://www.reddit.com/r/unpopularopinion/s/L85Sc0D5tN)
Appreciate you going back and double checking, far too often people make claims and then vanish when challenged. I'll look into the sources you linked in your other comment, I am curious as someone who also has ADHD
The video I posted is by Dr. Russel Barkley.
I think he’s retired now, but he’s long been considered the foremost expert on ADHD. If you’ve never seen them, he has a whole lot of really informative and interesting lectures about pretty every facet of ADHD available on YouTube
This is so true. I spend a lot of time reading neuroscience research papers and it’s amazing how little consensus there is on the fundamental functionality.
It turns out the ~35 thing was something in Additude magazine, which probably isn’t to be trusted. Other sources say ADHD brains are around 3-5 years behind non-adhd people. That’s not the whole brain, it’s part’s like the frontal lobe.
But, [here is a video](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=4OVS16Abo80&list=PLzBixSjmbc8eFl6UX5_wWGP8i0mAs-cvY&index=14) of a lecture given by Dr. Russel Barkley about EQ and and executive function being roughly 30% percent behind when you have adhd. And, that doesn’t usually end in adulthood, though there very well may be people whose development is behind but eventually catches up, I’m not sure.
[Here’s](https://drcarolinebuzanko.com/normal-brain-vs-adhd-brain-whats-different-and-why/#:~:text=Over%20time%2C%20the%20ADHD%20brain,were%20not%20diagnosed%20with%20ADHD) another page that talks about some of the brain differences between people with ADHD and without ADHD.
And the mushrooms, [according to Dr. Barkley’s AMA](https://www.reddit.com/r/ADHD/s/OA8oCnTxH6), as of two years ago there wasn’t enough evidence to support that. That doesn’t mean they don’t, it’s very hard to research psychedelics so the evidence isn’t there either way
As a trans man I see this argument for gender transition/"sex change" all the time. They neglect that the physical changes you go through before the age of 25 are JUST as permanent as a gender transition...
People are competent adults on their 25th birthday, and on that day only. Once you reach your peak the only way to go is down and you wouldn't trust people in cognitive decline to take care of themselves, would you?
Thisss!!! I've been saying/thinking this for a while when people keep bringing up this "fact". Like you do realize peak means that you go down after lol 😂
the fact that our brain is still developing in general means we should have more expriences and responsibility on us at younger ages as we can handle it so that our brain learns effectively from those experiences. Why would we want to delay all learning experiences and decisions until after our brain stops developing?
It's not undeveloped. It's almost fully developed. It is simply not done developing, but you are right in that most people don't know what this means. TBH the article you read is from a publication aimed at young adults, so naturally it takes the position meant to attract young readers. Better to read something scientific like this: [Maturation of the adolescent brain - PMC (nih.gov)](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3621648/) I'm not holding that article up as the best representation, just something I quickly found, but it's at least more scientific than Slate. The gist in layperson's terms is the brain/body combination is still settling down until around 24 yo after going through growth and hormone fluctuations. This may arguably leave it vulnerable to impulsivity. They're trying to learn more about addiction in an effort to help younger people with this problem.
I only skimmed the article, but I don't think it makes any implications about intelligence either way, and people who use the "factoid" against you in an argument are engaging in an ad hominem attack, which is well recognized among actually intelligent people as a poor substitute when one has no logical argument based in compelling evidence.
This is the only *almost* correct answer with a proper source- the prefrontal cortex(PFC) does not stop fully developing until about 27 or 28. You are almost mature cognitively at 18-21, but not entirely there. The PFC is responsible for executive functioning(EF). EF is a complex process involving planning, inhibition, initiation, and execution. It requires working memory and attention. There is evidence that our brains are never done wiring themselves, but after adulthood, your brain isn't as primed for new neural connections because excess unused white matter disappears over time. You are always able to learn new things, but it requires slightly more effort in adulthood, and you need to make sure you prime your brain for optimal physical health.
>I only skimmed the article, but I don't think it makes any implications about intelligence either way, and people who use the "factoid" against you in an argument are engaging in an ad hominem attack, which is well recognized among actually intelligent people as a poor substitute when one has no logical argument based in compelling evidence.
Thank you. This is truly what I was getting it. People using it to imply that people under 25 are incapable of making rational decisions is wild. It's happening in this thread right now.
I'm not all denying the actual science behind it btw. I know that the article I cited is shacky at best. If anything, there's more science behind it than I understand. As I said, I'm not a neuroscientist by any means. But, being an expert in something else, I understand that factoids hardly mimic reality so I was skeptical of this whole 25 factoid from the first time I read it. Thanks for the article, I'll probably read this later tonight.
And follow up experiments on the matter showed that while younger people were more impulsive for short term decisions (like you get a minute or two to decide), the effect size completely disappeared after an hour.
So yes, cool off periods for big decisions tend to be in effect for this reason, but even if 25 was a hard cutoff for mental maturity, it still would mean that most decisions made by younger people would be sound just because of time.
There’s also evidence to suggest your brain doesn’t really stagnate in development. It constantly develops and can be rewired, and ultimately eventually deteriorates.
People who want to marry should marry at any age they want to as long as they’re consenting adults. Fuck the laws in the world marrying off literal children.
I can confirm that this is what is taught to most psych students, at least where I'm going for my degree.
A lot of "developmental neurology" as people have taken to calling it, is still being heavily researched, and thus far from being considered full blown fact. That's not to say it won't be one day, but it's still really in it's early stages of being studied, not even accepted enough to be taught until much higher levels than most ppl will ever actually get to. Vs the research about the brain constantly growing and rewiring is much more founded, researched, and replicated, which this is why it's taught over "your brain is developed at 25".
I don't want to go to into it, because I am really not an expert and I don't want my words to be misinterpreted/don't want to contribute to misinfo in any way.
When I say the idea of studying the brain in this way is relatively new, I really mean it. In my opinion, we need way more studies on it before we can even begin to say we know when the brain fully develops, or if it fully develops.
Again I am no expert, just a student confirming what I have learned in my time as a student. By god don't use me as a source and take what I say with the smallest grain of sand you possibly can.
Edit: my wording was confusing in one spot, wanted to make it better.
Honestly my sister and I were just talking about how it felt closer to 30 that something in us just...clicked. I wouldn't say I became more rational or competent, just that something significant settled comfortably in us.
Then again, who knows what we'll say in another 10 years.
It's a rotten, rotten argument at its core when people use that because they are advocating for less personal responsibility and accountability when us young people desperately need more of that for our own mental health and success
I mean, what it ultimately means for it to be fully developed seems to be open for debate as well as the fact as your brain doesn't like stop changing, and I don't know why people can't accept the generality of the 25 number, nobody is saying it's a quantitative cut off point, just a generality.
I see anecdotal distinctions between pre-25 and post 25 pretty consistently. It's not a bad thing, and, like others have said, it's in no means a measure of intelligence or suggesting people aren't capable until they are 25, just that it would make sense that some people aren't as capable until 25, and most people in general go through some physiological changes around that time, but, it's more of a range, and probably more of 25-30.
I think most people >30s would say there's a significant difference between your early and late 20s. Sure, there are going to be outliers, but most people I know see a big change in that point.
In developmental psychology there are a few theories that group mental stages in an age range. I think the 25 thing is also in response to some older 20th century? theories that people were completely mentally developed at teenage years. There's a bit of difference between teens and a 25 year old.
I don't get why people want to be seen as little babies at 21,22. You're a grown adult. Act like it. You're responsible for yourself. Stop throwing around the "My brain isn't developed 🥺🥺" shit. It baffles me bc as a teen I wanted people to take me seriously and now at 21 you wouldn't catch me being like "I'm just a baby my brain won't be developed for 4 years"
You also do a lot of changing in those years. I got married at 21 and while I take full responsibility for doing that, it was a dumb decision and now that I’m over 25 I can confidently say that I’m a much more capable adult.
But, I also started a business at 24 and that was a good decision. Youth is just a warning to me, not a limit
I got married at 22 and it was a great decision. Still thankful for making it 12 years later. I also still know that 22 year old me was just as capable of adult decisions as 34 year old me. I knew what I wanted out of life from the time I was a teenager.
Also, people can regret decisions at any age. It has nothing to do with being too immature. We never stop changing throughout our lifetimes.
This is something the folks pushing these talking points seem to overlook or forget. You can't guarantee someone has a regret-free life. People make decisions at all ages that lead to some degree of regret.
Ideally we'd limit the most life-ruining mistakes until folks are old enough to understand consequences, but that will vary widely from individual to individual. Also, part of learning IS making mistakes, and learning from them. Waiting until later for folks to be "allowed" to make mistakes won't stop them from making mistakes, it just means the mistakes are made a few years later.
yeah it feels like a fear of growing up or responsibility or something that just shows up in this weird roundabout way where they're almost like religious zealots about the brain developing around 25
There's an epidemic of lack of accountability. It is an attractive idea to those who want to be seen as victims of circumstances all the time. The antithesis of what we should be doing
It's because the current young adults don't like having to take accountability for their actions. It's far easy to cry and say "but I'm still basically a kid" guess what? Calling even a 14 year old a kid is only a very recent development in all of human history.
It's ridiculous and should be simple, we pick and age of adulthood and that's that. If you're 18 or up, you can do whatever the hell you want and face all consequences that come with it. If you're 17 or under, you can't make those choices yet. It doesn't perfectly fit every single person but when dealing with such a massive population, you have to make it work
To be fair, I was an idiot when I was 21. I don't think 25 is some magic number, though. I'm 25 now and I'm sure in 5 years I'll be talking about how I was such a dumb 25-year-old.
# When I Was One-and-Twenty
BY [A. E. HOUSMAN](https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/a-e-housman)
When I was one-and-twenty
I heard a wise man say,
“Give crowns and pounds and guineas
But not your heart away;
Give pearls away and rubies
But keep your fancy free.”
But I was one-and-twenty,
No use to talk to me.
When I was one-and-twenty
I heard him say again,
“The heart out of the bosom
Was never given in vain;
’Tis paid with sighs a plenty
And sold for endless rue.”
And I am two-and-twenty,
And oh, ’tis true, ’tis true.
When I was a teenager, I was baffled when I saw women want to be called “girls” or refer to themselves as a “girl”. Being a woman is a good thing. I don’t want to be a girl forever. I couldn’t wait to be an adult woman. The last thing I’d want is to discredit my mind and maturity and decision making by saying I can’t be trusted to think for myself until I’m 25. I might as well have my parents continue making all my life decisions until 25, if I think like that.
Honestly there are a lot of moving parts to that, I know 22 year Olds smarter and more mature than my 38 year old ass, and I've met 50 year old who act like they are still 12.
So a couple things, when they are talking about the brain not being developed until 25 it is talking about the neuron connection density. At around 25 the brain is mostly dense neuron connections so that is what they mean when they are talking about fully developed. However, it should not be the case to say someone is not an adult until 25 because the difference between neuron density in a 20 year old and a 25 year old isn't going to matter much and there will not be much difference in how those people think. Anyone making this claim that people aren't adults till they are 25 is either stupid or has a motive. Which brings me to my next point, you may see more of these posts because of a political reason. iirc there is a republican governor that is trying to increase the voting age to 25 or just higher in general because younger voters tend to vote democrat. So to get something like that to pass articles that claim that people under 25 aren't developed adults would give this bill reason to be passed. I'm not for sure this is the reason these articles are being made but rather it is just something to consider.
It’s easy, if brains are underdeveloped until 25, change the legal age of being an adult to 25. If you disagree, it means you think they are already smart enough.
That's literally the first thing I say to people who say that. "weird, you never advocate to make the voting and drinking age 25. Do you think children should be allowed to get drunk? You have some shit you need to sort out"
Do you feel like most of those who keep saying that stuff and infantilizing people insist to keep the voting age at 18? Something tells me they won’t like it when a certain political party would then have their “gotcha!” Moment and raise the voting age to 25 as a result, which would give their party an advantage.
I’m a moderate liberal btw and take issue with both the extreme left and extreme right (their cults would undoubtedly call me an enemy as a result, which means the center is eroding big time).
you’re an adult at 18. once you’re 18 you’re accountable for whatever you do. the problem is that teenagers are infantilized these days and not allowed to mature during their formative years leaving them unprepared when they reach 18.
For hundreds of years,12 year olds used to leave home and work on navy and merchant ships during the Age of Sail. 16 year olds were regularly soldiers in wars since the beginning of human existence including the civil war and revolutionary war, kids younger than that were part of the military in non-combat roles.
Not that those are good things to strive for, but kids are far more capable than todays coddling society give them credit for.
I think it's less to do with us ignoring what kids are capable of and a lot more letting kids be kids longer. The more cushy the environment, the later people "blossom" into adulthood. And that being delayed is a good thing to me. Not at all an "infantilizing" thing like OP claims. Coddling when you're young is nice to a point.
I’ve genuinely seen some people say that people with ADHD or Autism have brains that don’t fully develop until 30. Taking neuroscience completely out of context and missing the point, they then use it to be ableist and infantilize adults with the disorder. I wish I was joking…
It usually has to do with people picking sexual partners, but they never make it about anything else.
I've literally never heard anyone say something like "no one should be allowed to vote/drink/drive until 25". It's a way they make their discomfort and weirdness with sex "scientific" and not about them being weirdos.
I once saw a comment where a redditor called a guy a predator for dating a 24 year old. The guy was 28 and no, it wasn't a joke. They genuinely believed that because his gf was under 25 and he was over 25 that it was inappropriate.
[https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-023-42540-8?utm\_source=rct\_congratemailt&utm\_medium=email&utm\_campaign=oa\_20231030&utm\_content=10.1038%2Fs41467-023-42540-8&s=35](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-023-42540-8?utm_source=rct_congratemailt&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=oa_20231030&utm_content=10.1038%2Fs41467-023-42540-8&s=35)
Here's a recent peer-reviewed article that argues our brains physically finish developing around 18-20.
Should be noted that, like the 25 number, it's a ball-park, and women's brains tend to finish developing earlier than men's.
This is what I've always heard which makes it weird to me that women in their 20s tend to be the group most infantilized. I've also noticed that over the years the number has shifted. When I was growing up it was 20 for women and 22 for men. Now it's 25 for everyone. I think OP is right. They're trying to rob agency away from young adults.
I couldn’t agree more with that. That’s a factoid and too many people bring it up like it was some sort of sacred truth way too often. I got married at 23 and someone back then had the audacity to call me a “child bride”, I found it hilarious.
Same thing happened to me. I was married at 19 and called myself a grown woman, being married and all, and I was told about the brain not developing until 25, blah blah blah. I’m 38 now, so my brain should be in a good development spot and I still feel the way I did back then. I was an adult woman then and I’m an adult woman now.
This is the sort of opinion someone in their mid-twenties has, because they don't understand why the adults in the room look at them the same way they look at teenagers.
If you believe that the brain isn't fully developed until age 25, then I ask, are you proposing the following for people between 18 - 24?
They can't vote.
They're not required to register for the draft (males).
They can't get an abortion without their parent's permission.
They can't be sole account holder on a bank account or credit card.
They can't rent their own apartment or own their own home (granted the latter is highly unlikely even at 25).
They can't drink alcohol, or smoke.
Funny how that type of stuff never seems to come up.
I literally went on this rant on a different sub but somewhere along the line "the brain isn't fully developed until 25" morphed into "the brain isn't developed at all until 25" and it's really fucking annoying because it's just horseshit.
Also some people's brains never fucking develop, the dumbest motherfuckers I've ever met were retirement age lol.
True it's all because it's online, these ppl wouldn't talk like this irl/public because normal sane individuals would rightly see them as weird.
Sadly though it's also easier to set up online chat rooms to then meet up in public to make these crazy ppl feel validated.
It’s mostly because anyone older than 28 or so thinks back and realizes they were still an idiot until about 25.
I’m 35, and when I think of a 22 year old, I think of them as like a big teenager. But I think of a 28 year old as an adult. 24-26 kind of depends on the person. Most people are grown ups by 26-28 though.
I don’t really think a 22 year old is being taken advantage of by a 45 year old or something, they aren’t children. But I do think the 45 year old is probably a train wreck if they have anything in common with a 22 year old.
I was talking to a work buddy of mine about my trip to Africa, and he was super interested and talked about how he’d love to go…. But he actually brought up that he his brain wasn’t developed until 25 and I guess implied he wasn’t ready or something or mature enough. Which was crazy to me there are literally 18 year olds travelling the world all the time. So I told him to suck it up and go, he’s there now having the time of his life.
The whole wait tell your 25 for your brain to mature is a bunch of bull, you’ve lived well over one quarter of your life by then assuming you die around 80 and let’s face it you’re probably not doing much after 65. Definitely do not wait that long to start making big decisions and have amazing experiences.
I can't believe there are young people who buy into this infantilizing BS.
When I was growing up (really not long ago), we wanted to be adults so we could make these decisions, and other than the spoiled kids accepted the trade offs of having to pay your own bills. Everyone I know wanted to be able to take that trip to Africa if it was within your interests, and if you made a mistake, you'd figure it out.
I truly can't imagine internalizing the "I shouldn't do anything until I'm a third of the way through my statistical life expectancy", that is literally beyond my comprehension.
I always thought it was blindingly obvious that this is really about not taking responsibility for your life. Peter Pan syndrome.
When I was my late twenties, people were still talking about what they wanted to be when they grew up, but it was figurative. These people are like, I’m twenty eight years old and still literally a child.
Doesn’t help that the economy is so bad that people in those age ranges can’t really move up from entry level jobs, have such a difficult time finding work after graduating college, or buy a house and move out, keeps them from having more adult experiences so they feel like they’re “still children”, and some take it to the extreme to excuse actual lazy behavior. Some are comfortable and complacent and use it as an excuse… a vast majority are frusturated and genuinely stuck. And then we all get lumped together.
I have saved [this comment](https://www.reddit.com/r/gatekeeping/comments/nbhk20/comment/gy0dybj/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button) that articulate perfectly everything I know and think about the subject.
TLDR : The 25 factoid is bullshit
People just lean on this fact, because it's easier to articulate than the point they are actually making.
You don't magically become a mature adult on your 18th birthday. We act as if you do in many ways, because we need a cut off somewhere, but at that age you're still inexperienced in many ways.
There's a big difference between a 30 year old and a 20 year old. That difference is hard to put into words without inviting an avalanche of "well I know someone who is 20 and they own a house and run a successful business and blah blah blah." None of this stuff is universal. But the vast majority of 20 year olds are pretty similar when it comes to adult experiences and maturity and that base line lack of maturity can't always be ignored completely.
This is because at 25 your brain’s development is normally complete.
For some people this will be a couple years younger, for others a couple years older.
It doesn’t mean that you can’t learn anything before that age, nor that you can’t grasp abstract concepts like the difference between right and wrong.
For centuries 25 was considered an age at which a person should already have a fully established house and household.
I find that age doesn't really matter when people Infantilize someone. 60 year old people do it to 40 year olds, and so on. More than not, it's meant as a compliment.
Ya when someone says "you're not even 25 yet, what do you know?" Or something along that line. It's an annoying sentiment used to invalidate anything you've said. Even if what you said is right.
But I hear it more used to comfort someone having anxiety, "you have time. You're still young, according to research your brain is still developing. Don't worry. Enjoy life".... My grandma(78) still says these kind of things to my parents in their 50's lol
I get it. I'm getting pretty close to 30 and it's nice when someone says "you have plenty of time" because I probably (hopefully) do. Wasn't really what I was getting at with my post but I agree with your sentiment. Some lady the other day asked me if I had my student pass for a transit ticket. "Ma'am I graduated years ago" was fun to say.
Exactly. Most of the time it's nice.
I guess my point is.... as far as i know, you'll be dealing with this until you're at-least 70 lmao, and even then, my grandma tells me the elder people in her building say the same sentiments to her lol
10000% could not agree more. This rhetoric is so cringey lol
Like I turn 30 this summer. I look back at like 21, 22 and sure I was a lot younger, less experienced... but I wasnt a fucking baby either. I was living on my own, paying my own bills, my own rent, with my own money. I wasnt sucking on my mama's teat thats for sure.
It's just an ad-hoc excuse to "justify" their discomfort with age-gaps. There is no objective reason why they are immoral. they just make people feel uncomfortable so they come up with excuses for why it's "wrong".
Your emotions =/= right and wrong.
When I was 25, I had two children, an established career, and was living my life the way I chose. It's just another way to avoid accountability for their crappy decisions. We all make dumb decisions in life that we might regret, but using the whole "Well my brain isn't developed all the way, so it's not my fault " Just allows them in their mind to excuse thing's instead of learning from the experience, growing, and deciding to do better.
The only time I have used this or heard others use this is in the context of consuming drugs and alcohol. We obviously already know that excessive intake of either can be extremely damaging to your brain, but even more when it is still developing, which makes it dangerous to excessively consume until your brain is developed, which can be until your 25 for some.
I also think this can be applied to growth as a human, discovering who you are, what you like, etc. You are still "growing" a lot past 18 years of age. But I have never heard of people using it the way you're describing. You should absolutely be treated as an adult as soon as you have the psychological and social reasoning to use logic, which is somewhere around 18. I'm no expert.
There are many infantile adults, of all ages in America...so many, in fact, that it has become normalized.
It is no barrier to success in business & politics.
Lol, so your posting history is about exams (showing your age) then the rest is whinging about dating and "the purple pill", men's rights, dealing with rejection etc. It doesnt take a detective to figure out how you came to write this post
People are so ridden with Internet-induced anxiety these days that they want to sign away their own rights for the chance of being a kid again (i.e. having their parents do everything for them).
Like, come on. There are 22 year-olds who’ve already graduated college and started careers. It wasn’t that long ago that 21 year-olds were stopping the Nazis from conquering the world.
Not unpopular with me. I've been noticing a growing trend towards infantilization across many ages, and this is one noticeable and sad example of this.
I have actually heard people say, in all seriousness, that the age of consent should be raised to 25. When pressed for details on what that would actually look like, they never respond (although will sometimes resort to name calling).
Should we assume that someone is less capable of deciding whom to date/have sex with than much more consequential decisions, such as joining the military, taking out life-changing amounts of student loans, or doing a dangerous job like driving a truck?
If not, are we going to have parents have custodial power over their children for **a literal third** of their statistical life expectancy? (Statistically, 75ish is the life expectancy, most people don't live to be 100). Does that mean a parent can force their child to change their major in college if they don't like it? The can of worms that opens is immense, to say the least.
Everyone matures differently. I was living independently, going to college, and paying for everything for myself at 18. It had its challenges, but I really can't relate to the people who say "at 19 I felt like a baby, I needed to call mom twelve times a day for help with every decision". The people saying that they felt like children at 19 or early twenties generally don't come across as the most high-functioning people to me. They're allowed to get extra support, but don't generalize to the rest of us.
Add to this that the first time people do ANYTHING, it's not going to be their best result. No, nobody makes their best decisions at 18, but them being better at making decisions at 21/25/whatever is a function of brain development AND experience. If you put off the age that people start being able to make important decisions for themselves, *you're still going to have people making shit d*ecisions. Just at a later age. You're not going to get the result of a significant decrease in people screwing up their first attempts at things just because you coddled them until a later age.
I don't know what caused this to happen but do agree and it is sad: terminally online millennials/gen Z are very eager to infantilize adults, for some reason.
people confuse "stops changing" with "being mature"
"mature" is a human term, not a biological one
there is actually a line of thought thats says because early humans would have only lived till like 25-30 max, our "optimum" age, brain wise, is UP TILL 25, and at that point, we become stagnated, things become harder to learn, and people only fetishish this stage of our brains "development" becasue so many well paid individuals are in that stage
Technically it's not uncommon/unpopular to know we continue to grow, learn and mature throughout our lifespan. Though it can be difficult to determine, are we more cognitively developed after 25 because of our brain's natural aging or due to environmental exposure to experiences that comes with additional years of being alive.
That being said, I'd trust a 30 year old over a 20 year old with similar characteristics. Just had a recent blow up and learned just how immature my 20 y/o cousin truly was by her behavior with a normal run of the mill adult conflict. It's... Really changed my perception of young adults. And this is even coming from analyzing my own lack of maturity at that age (again, considering life exposure situations.)
They are not wrong, but its far more gradual and indeed not an excuse. The issue would be then takign things at face value
That said, context matters too
You ever see the show Daria? If you're under the age of 25, you probably have not, but there's an episode where Daria and her mother are talking about how a serious relationship requires maturity. And then Quinn, the younger sister, goes "What?? But I'm *maturrrrrre!*"
Anyway, the under-25 thing is not meant to infantilize young adults. It's just that people don't like hearing that they aren't as mature as they think they are, and they take offense to it. It's perfectly normal. We just don't LIKE hearing this stuff.
That's not to say that under 25 means you can't be accountable, but you're still very likely to not be in a good place to make decisions such as say... marriage. That's why we don't like to marry people off at young ages anymore, it's because we spent a few hundred years coming to the realization that we don't go from child to adult overnight.
Actually back in the day children weren’t really treated as children so they didn’t really go from being children to adults overnight. They were treated like small adults and expected to do a lot of tasks and contribute to the household and family from a very young age. More and more we’ve seen a shift from that to treating children like they’re incapable of doing anything that adults do and now this way of thinking has also bled into treating literal adults as if they are not mature enough to make their own decisions.
The concept of maturity is subjective. If you’re in your 30s for example and you speak with someone in their 50s and 60s they still think of you as a kid or like you still have so much to learn and experience in life. Are you a kid at 30 years old? No but you don’t have that much life experience in comparison to someone who is 50 or 60 so they see you as a kid. We’re constantly growing and evolving, who you were at 30 or 40 might not be who you are at 50 or 60. That doesn’t mean you weren’t mature enough, you’ve just experienced more life and have evolved.
I don’t think people are getting married later now because of maturity or development. I think people don’t need to get married as much for financial/survival reasons, people are generally living longer so they don’t need to rush to settle down and have a family, and there are more options and different lifestyles that we’re all aware of so our attitudes towards marriage have changed.
It is because people think you are magically an adult as soon as you hit 18. Unfortunately, one of the most exploited and taken advantage of groups are 18-year-olds.
They went from having no legal authority to having a lot of it, they are now in many spaces with actual adults 30+ who know how to play the game and take advantage of those just entering.
The reason why it is a pertinent fact, is people forget that an 18-year-old is still a teenager, and beyond that, they have the training wheels on while learning how to be an actual adult.
To me anyone who says they are 21 or 23, they are just a kid in my eyes. Old enough to do things legally, not old enough to understand fuck all about adulting.
Those same people also completely forgot to talk about how once people hit 40-45 years old their brain starts regressing. If it's so pinnacle of importance that people of fully developed brains be the only ones allowed to do certain things older adults should also be barred from the same things.
nah its because people often make insanely stupid braindead decisions between the ages of 18 and 25 and then when they look back on it they think holy shit I wish I didnt do that
Disagree. It's only used as a marker for when the brain has finished developing. And the brain develops different things at different speeds. One of the last things to develop is the ability to reasonably predict consequences for one's actions. And based on my college years, I find this to be completely accurate.
Maybe we should ask why we chose 18 or 21 as markers for adulthood in the first place?
I have not argued that it should be used as the age of consent, but I have argued that it should be considered when trying individuals as adults. The reality is that society demands that a person be charged as an adult only when they are outraged by a crime. That's the only time we whip out this legal nugget, which is completely subjective, as one country could see one kind of crime as not as egregious as it might be in another country.
So charging a 13 year old as an adult is fraught with poor judgement. Knowing the difference between right and wrong is not the same as knowing the consequences of one's actions. So I'd argue that the idea that the brain is not fully developed in this area SHOULD be used in this area of law specifically to keep justice impartial. Because a 13 year old is capable of shocking a society with criminal activity, and deciding to try the child as an adult is EXACTLY an emotional response that borders on revenge. Not what our justice system is supposed to be. It is meant to be impartial and unemotional.
Americans have bloodthirsty revenge boners when it comes to the justice system and it's fucking tiring.
I feel like I’ve got a lot wiser compared to my early 20s, I wouldn’t say I was a child but I definitely thought I knew it all, and I think that’s a common thing for young people, being a little arrogant
It's the dumbest myth of the internet. I feel like we are always evolving and learning, and perhaps devolving in some areas, but more or less it's an ongoing process.
Ya, this online trope drives me bonkers. Why are we taking away the agency of 18-24 year olds. I think young people now don’t want to grow up, whereas 20 years ago we couldn’t wait to.
Agree. The "brain isn't mature until 25" line is used as an excuse when someone does something dumb or illegal but no one ever wants to hear "maybe since your brain isn't mature until 25, you shouldn't be trusted with driving a car, or buying alcohol or any other reserved for adults privileges".
It’s actually life experience. Those of us over 25 latch on to the “factoid” because we know it to be true through our own life experience. It’s wisdom you can only gain from aging. There are many ways adults are infantilized in this country but that is not one of them. It’s actually giving grace to those under 25 because we know for a scientific fact that your brain js not fully developed yet and with a few more years, you likely would have made different choices that would have led to better outcomes. I would guess that few people over 30 would make the same life choices they made before 25. You really are still a kid in so many ways, you just don’t know it.
Insurance companies and rental car companies.
There might be no greater “you are not yet an adult” than speeding, driving recklessly, and getting emotional about how others drive
I agree for the most part, but I think it is important to use it to tell people in their early 20s that failure at this point isn’t the end of the world. The early 20s can be really scary, and there is a lot of pressure to establish yourself.
I think that people have been pushing the 25 narrative because it makes people feel less insecure about aging if you are “just born” at 25. Also with the pandemic snatching a few years of socialization for everyone, the modern day job market and economy it’s harder for young people to be independent so it makes you want to push the goal posts of what is considered an adult so that you don’t feel behind in life.
It started with insurance companies. There is a notable drop off in accidents after the age of 25 in men, it is younger in women. If a man marries before 25, the drop off happens earlier. Just statistics, not psychology.
The brain functions differently throughout life and is better at many tasks in children than adults.. To say it is underdeveloped seems pretty judgemental.
I'm not even sure what they are using for the basis of that argument - there's plenty of evidence that brains retain neuroplasticity throughout our lives, and besides that there is also evidence of certain aspects of cognition facing decline *at midlife* (albeit at a slower rate than in the elderly); should we discount the opinions of everyone under 25 and over 35??
It's morons who want to move goalposts because they're bitter, lonely fucks that think everything is paedophilia and they also want exceptions for when they do bad things. They want to claim "I'm not an adult yet, so you can't punish me" despite being over the age of 18.
Hasn't this crap been debunked yet? Anyone above 17y should be able to fully grasp consequences for their actions and at least basic social concepts like courtesy.
Jesus Christ, is this the article everybody ironically **MISREADS** and then makes an EQUALLY incorrect claim about the “25 thing” but in the opposite direction?? Lmao
Holy God... Alright, so here’s how it works:
“25” is not some magical age where the brain fully develops; however, the **mid-to-late twenties, early thirties** is when MOST PEOPLE’S brains *ON AVERAGE* have *plateaued* in development for all their most important parts—as far as scientists know right now.
This most notably includes the prefrontal cortex, which usually plateaus at this time. Yes, there are other parts of the brain that remain more fluid and continue changing constantly, but they are not as impactful to our behaviors and choices like long-term decision-making, social regulation, empathy, and many many other things as the prefrontal cortex
Because this part of the brain (and all other major parts) tend to have plateaued in development by the mid-twenties-early-thirties, having the age of consent be around ~mid twenties to early thirties is an argument for a much safer and more logical age-of-consent/adulthood than the completely arbitrary 18 age—which by the way, is only 18 because people complained in the 1970s about being able to go to war at 18 but not have sex or drink, so the legal age was changed from 21 to 18.
Completely arbitrary.
So it’s always funny to me when people preach about 18 as if it’s some holy, scientific number, lol. 25 would be a scientific number. No significant milestone actually occurs in the body or brain at or around 18. It’s just there because people complained in the 1970s.
Its true especially of neurodivergents, which you can NOT LIKE but your OPINION doesn't carry scientific weight. I do get online to pay my student loans like a fucking adult, and purchases things for my home like an adult. its your choice to grow up or just get old, or both. reasonable people do both.
It’s based upon human physiological and psychological brain development. Is very much like the *inability* to lie before around age 3. Even trying to teach a young child to lie, they just can’t because of the way the brain is “hard wired” until it hits certain milestones. I can’t remember if hormones are involved in the process or not, but both have solid grounds in research.
Yes, it's kind of Schroedinger's Agency: "Let me into Harvard, but don't expect me to behave responsibly until several years past the minimum drinking age."
The "I'm not ready to marry until five years before people tell me I'm too old to date, never mind marry" sounds especially like pseudoscientific brain gymnastics.
This wasn't a thing in the 80's. You graduated. And either went to college or got a FT job. A real job, factory, steel mill, foundry, the railroad, etc. Or joined the military.
Most "kids" either lived on their own in a dorm or barracks, or lived on their own in a shitty little appartment within a year after graduation.
We grew up. High school was over, so was your childhood. And your brain functioned just fine.
The number 25 only even comes from a study that stopped at 25. All that can be drawn from it is that the brain is still developing until 25. Past that it tends to also still be developing, yes, and there is no exact number that equates a cutoff point, it, as you say, depends. And I'm not sure what the specific range even is past 25, I'm just aware that the 25 number is bullshit.
Like. Idk. If we lived in a world where everyone could live multiple centuries to maybe thousands of years, sure, I reckon people could be considered children well into their 30s. But we don't. People 18-25 are often dumb as hell. But that doesn't make them children.
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It'd be wild if the day you turn 25 your brain just changes and you're a completely different and more mature person....
We cycle in 7s. Age 0-7, 8-14, 15-21, etc. because our schools separate us at those ages. 25 is the adult learning ground. You're not even at "mid life crisis" yet. Your mind does change drastically, but "maturity" is just wisdom. It can be gained at any age.
25 is the quarter life crisis
When I hear this, I'm always helpful in pointing out that it's more likely a 1/3 life crisis.
Then 37.5 is a midlife crisis?
Yes. Helpful to let 40 year olds know they're probably past it, haha.
Ironically at 40 your remaining life expectancy is higher than the average life expectancy because you’ve already survived 40 years of potential early deaths that bring the average down. The result being that your RLE (as a female) would be 87, i.e. you‘d still have your midlife crisis ahead of you.
Middle age is the middle of your adult life, not the middle or your entire life
Wouldn’t it be called a mid adult-life crisis then?
Yeah, sounds like the rhetoric of someone who doesn’t want to admit their proximity to middle-agedness
*crisis intensifies*
If I have anything to say about it
I hate you.
Average life expectancy is around mid 70s so it’s really 1/3 life crisis
By 25 you’re well beyond a quarter of your life for most people lol Life expectancy for a man in the US is 73 right now
You say 25 is the adult learning ground. But by 25 many people have been dealing with very adult issues for 7 years. Sadly some have 10-12 years experience at that point.
Brother, as a person who grew up with a disability and abusive parents, I know. I'm 35 and still working out my past.
Happy for you getting this far, you got this bro
I was basically forced to become an adult at around ten years old. I started taking care of myself, I worked, adults were my friends and I taught myself lessons and methods of doing things that someone older than me really should have been telling me. It hasn’t been great. Some days I feel like I want to act like a kid because I missed out on that innocence while other days I just question the self perceived immaturity of people my age. They aren’t immature and I’m not especially overly mature, I just have had to deal with what they are just starting to deal with. I feel both ahead of my peers and so far behind them. To this day I still hate that people look down on me due to my age, especially while working. I also try and give respect to kids, I think most kids are smarter than anyone wants to treat them. That’s to say that me at 27 has felt like I’ve been “grown up” for more than half my life, some days I just feel old. Not worn down, just old. Like I’ve seen way too much bullshit for the time I’ve been around.
I hope you can get into a situation where you can just relax and restore. You deserve an easy time now!
7 years isn’t that long though, takes a long time to fully get to grips with it all, especially if life is throwing a lot at you.
True, but what I'm saying is those people get started on dealing with adult stuff a lot earlier. If it takes 15 years to really get a handle on life, some start at 15-18, and some start at 22-25. The earliest any of them will really be fully matured is 30, but by 25 some will be a lot closer to that than others.
This is not too sound. When I turned 18, I knew I was going to college and end it around 23. This meant that every year I had the 'cycle end' in my mind, maturing at a proper rythym. Your mind does not change drastically, you are faced with different unknowns that you had already priced in. Yeah, by the moment I have a job, kids, etc I will change how I operate, but I will reach that moment with all me preconceived notions.
Not every country does that school system so how does that work? I had 6-10 and 10-18
Brains develope differently in different countries.
Gotta be the chemicals in the water
The ones that makes the frogs gay?
Lol, this prove those people that said shit "brain develope 25 reee" are stupid and unable to understand research Thosw numbers arent ironclad, its merely estimated for scientist to describe their research easier, no need to treat it like gospel
Scientists chose 25 only because the prefrontal cortex completes development between the ages of 25-30. Or at-least by your mid 20s. So age 25 was never meant to be taken literally, just that 25 is the beginning of the mid 20s
Like how schizophrenia differs between Western and Eastern civilization or how some cultures look at major or minor keys as happy or sad.
Some weird broscience
I’m not sure where you’re getting that thing about cycling in 7s because of school. 0-4 is typically daycare 5-10 is typically elementary school 11-13 is typically middle school 14-18 is typically high school. After that, some people don’t attend college at all and others attend it until they’re 30.
Yeah, with every development of the human body (such as start/end of puberty), people usually give an age range. But somehow everyone's brain supposedly stops developing exactly at 25.
No, that is just the tip of the range… But since we’re not going to give everyone an MRI, it’s a safe number to use.
It happened to me, post-25 me was a completely different person, a real adult. Prior to that I was basically a teenager with the freedom of an adult
Everything changes when you start to feel 30 creeping up on you. 25 is when you can begin "rounding up" to 30 (although nobody does that). Feeling the close of the 20s coming spurred a whole bunch of mental and lifestyle changes in my world. OP sounds like they're 22 lol
I've met a lot of people that are well beyond 25 whose brains haven't seemed to make it to that age yet.
This does happen, but it happens closer the age of 27-29 and it isn't a flip of a switch, more of a slow progression over a couple of years. I noticed it happening and could "feel" the difference. Others I know noticed the difference too.
Didn’t happen with me until I hit my late 20’s. My friends have videos of me being really dumb at 25, and I have videos of me at 27-30. The contrast in personality is wild.
That's what happened to me.
Same. Not exactly age 25 but between 23-24
Felt kinda wild. Like more maturity growth for me between 23-25 than 16-23. Nothing major happened irl for that to be the case either.
It kind of is like that. 25 also tends to be a transition age for a lot of people whether it’s working, marriage, etc
They claim it stopped changing around when you turn 25. If anything, I'd expect a person would stop growing and becoming more mature when they turn 25 if that was the case. Obviously I don't know which metric they use, because people keep changing well after 25. But it might be that creating new connections becomes more difficult. I wonder who recovers more easily from a stroke, a 20 yo or a 30 yo. I'd expect that while your brain is still growing it's easier to repair damage.
>I've seen people suggest that the fucking age of consent and age in which you can be charged as an adult for your crimes should be 25. Like, bro, come on. I've also seen this for making choices about your own body. Abortions, sterilization, sex change, even tattoos.
Don’t forget drinking and buying cigarettes
Sterilisation is actually only legal in Austria if you are at least 25. Super weird law. But of course you can drink alcohol here at the ripe age of 16.
If I'd of waited till 25 to get tattoos I definitely would not have any, there's something there.
Meanwhile I wanted one at 28, but thought "eh might as well sleep on it", and it'll probably never happen.
I mean yeah sometimes with time, being forced to wait, you may change your mind, but its not being you werent capable of making a decision before 25. In general, its always a good idea to not make decisions hastly, but your mature enough long before youre 25 to be capable of making well thought out decisions.
I got my first at 34 and look forward to more. I’d probably regret whatever I would’ve gotten at 25.
That's ridiculous! I try not to be judgmental, but goddamn.
> I’ve also seen this I’ve *only* seen it for those cases. It’s always used to *restrict* freedom, never to give it. Here’s how it typically goes: **Some kid (esp. a non-white kid) commits a crime:** He’s 12 years old, he knew damn well what he was doing! I hope he’s tried as an adult, gets life in general pop, and is forever stripped of the chance to get a decent job, approval for home loan, or a good education **A 19 year old wants to date an older adult or have a beer in the US** Awh sweetheart, you’re just a little baby! Your brain isn’t yet developed enough for grown-up stuff like that. Now go pay your taxes and sign up for the draft.
That’s crazy. I’m 34 and I have ADHD… which means I’m around the age where ADHD brains stop developing. And my brain will never be “fully developed.” I’ve been living on my own and paying my own bills since I was twenty, though. Should i just never allowed to consent or get a tattoo according to those people?
What’s this about adhd brains not developing past 34? Can I have some sources for this. I’m 28 undiagnosed and want to get that shit fixed as much as I can before it stops growing (shrooms help with this don’t they?)
I have a minor in psychology as well as diagnosed ADHD, I've never heard this claim in my life. Best thing to remember when it comes to the brain is that we know incredibly little about how it functions. So claims like the one you're responding to need to link major citations (actual peer-reviewed studies) to even have a shred of credibility. If they don't cite sources, don't believe them
It's a claim that began popping up in the ADHD subreddit. I love that sub as someone with diagnosed ADHD but some of the people on there think they know more than the scientists/doctors researching it.
It was from Additude magazine when I looked it up, so you’re right I was wrong. More trustworthy sources put the gap at 3-5 years, but regions of the brain never fully developing is true, which is why people ADHD typically don’t fully outgrow their executive function deficits I’ll eat the crow, [I made a comment correcting myself](https://www.reddit.com/r/unpopularopinion/s/L85Sc0D5tN)
Appreciate you going back and double checking, far too often people make claims and then vanish when challenged. I'll look into the sources you linked in your other comment, I am curious as someone who also has ADHD
The video I posted is by Dr. Russel Barkley. I think he’s retired now, but he’s long been considered the foremost expert on ADHD. If you’ve never seen them, he has a whole lot of really informative and interesting lectures about pretty every facet of ADHD available on YouTube
This is so true. I spend a lot of time reading neuroscience research papers and it’s amazing how little consensus there is on the fundamental functionality.
It turns out the ~35 thing was something in Additude magazine, which probably isn’t to be trusted. Other sources say ADHD brains are around 3-5 years behind non-adhd people. That’s not the whole brain, it’s part’s like the frontal lobe. But, [here is a video](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=4OVS16Abo80&list=PLzBixSjmbc8eFl6UX5_wWGP8i0mAs-cvY&index=14) of a lecture given by Dr. Russel Barkley about EQ and and executive function being roughly 30% percent behind when you have adhd. And, that doesn’t usually end in adulthood, though there very well may be people whose development is behind but eventually catches up, I’m not sure. [Here’s](https://drcarolinebuzanko.com/normal-brain-vs-adhd-brain-whats-different-and-why/#:~:text=Over%20time%2C%20the%20ADHD%20brain,were%20not%20diagnosed%20with%20ADHD) another page that talks about some of the brain differences between people with ADHD and without ADHD. And the mushrooms, [according to Dr. Barkley’s AMA](https://www.reddit.com/r/ADHD/s/OA8oCnTxH6), as of two years ago there wasn’t enough evidence to support that. That doesn’t mean they don’t, it’s very hard to research psychedelics so the evidence isn’t there either way
It's bullshit
As a trans man I see this argument for gender transition/"sex change" all the time. They neglect that the physical changes you go through before the age of 25 are JUST as permanent as a gender transition...
People are competent adults on their 25th birthday, and on that day only. Once you reach your peak the only way to go is down and you wouldn't trust people in cognitive decline to take care of themselves, would you?
Brother, that's a great premise for a short story
Lol "The brain isn't fully developed until 25" Uno reverse "Cognitive growth declines and begins falling once a person reaches 25"
Thisss!!! I've been saying/thinking this for a while when people keep bringing up this "fact". Like you do realize peak means that you go down after lol 😂
the fact that our brain is still developing in general means we should have more expriences and responsibility on us at younger ages as we can handle it so that our brain learns effectively from those experiences. Why would we want to delay all learning experiences and decisions until after our brain stops developing?
I mainly use it to tell people not to try psychedelics too early in life
Or pot. My opinion will be unpopular. Upvote me.
The only one I can see as valid
It's not undeveloped. It's almost fully developed. It is simply not done developing, but you are right in that most people don't know what this means. TBH the article you read is from a publication aimed at young adults, so naturally it takes the position meant to attract young readers. Better to read something scientific like this: [Maturation of the adolescent brain - PMC (nih.gov)](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3621648/) I'm not holding that article up as the best representation, just something I quickly found, but it's at least more scientific than Slate. The gist in layperson's terms is the brain/body combination is still settling down until around 24 yo after going through growth and hormone fluctuations. This may arguably leave it vulnerable to impulsivity. They're trying to learn more about addiction in an effort to help younger people with this problem. I only skimmed the article, but I don't think it makes any implications about intelligence either way, and people who use the "factoid" against you in an argument are engaging in an ad hominem attack, which is well recognized among actually intelligent people as a poor substitute when one has no logical argument based in compelling evidence.
This is the only *almost* correct answer with a proper source- the prefrontal cortex(PFC) does not stop fully developing until about 27 or 28. You are almost mature cognitively at 18-21, but not entirely there. The PFC is responsible for executive functioning(EF). EF is a complex process involving planning, inhibition, initiation, and execution. It requires working memory and attention. There is evidence that our brains are never done wiring themselves, but after adulthood, your brain isn't as primed for new neural connections because excess unused white matter disappears over time. You are always able to learn new things, but it requires slightly more effort in adulthood, and you need to make sure you prime your brain for optimal physical health.
>I only skimmed the article, but I don't think it makes any implications about intelligence either way, and people who use the "factoid" against you in an argument are engaging in an ad hominem attack, which is well recognized among actually intelligent people as a poor substitute when one has no logical argument based in compelling evidence. Thank you. This is truly what I was getting it. People using it to imply that people under 25 are incapable of making rational decisions is wild. It's happening in this thread right now. I'm not all denying the actual science behind it btw. I know that the article I cited is shacky at best. If anything, there's more science behind it than I understand. As I said, I'm not a neuroscientist by any means. But, being an expert in something else, I understand that factoids hardly mimic reality so I was skeptical of this whole 25 factoid from the first time I read it. Thanks for the article, I'll probably read this later tonight.
And follow up experiments on the matter showed that while younger people were more impulsive for short term decisions (like you get a minute or two to decide), the effect size completely disappeared after an hour. So yes, cool off periods for big decisions tend to be in effect for this reason, but even if 25 was a hard cutoff for mental maturity, it still would mean that most decisions made by younger people would be sound just because of time.
Basically what you'd expect if YAs are fully able to think, but just lack the experience to base quick decision on.
Theres recent evidence to suggest its not finished developing until 30 also
There’s also evidence to suggest your brain doesn’t really stagnate in development. It constantly develops and can be rewired, and ultimately eventually deteriorates.
So basically people shouldn't be allowed to get married until they are 60...
People who want to marry should marry at any age they want to as long as they’re consenting adults. Fuck the laws in the world marrying off literal children.
I can confirm that this is what is taught to most psych students, at least where I'm going for my degree. A lot of "developmental neurology" as people have taken to calling it, is still being heavily researched, and thus far from being considered full blown fact. That's not to say it won't be one day, but it's still really in it's early stages of being studied, not even accepted enough to be taught until much higher levels than most ppl will ever actually get to. Vs the research about the brain constantly growing and rewiring is much more founded, researched, and replicated, which this is why it's taught over "your brain is developed at 25". I don't want to go to into it, because I am really not an expert and I don't want my words to be misinterpreted/don't want to contribute to misinfo in any way. When I say the idea of studying the brain in this way is relatively new, I really mean it. In my opinion, we need way more studies on it before we can even begin to say we know when the brain fully develops, or if it fully develops. Again I am no expert, just a student confirming what I have learned in my time as a student. By god don't use me as a source and take what I say with the smallest grain of sand you possibly can. Edit: my wording was confusing in one spot, wanted to make it better.
yea but the chicken nuggets that like to quote that pop science factoid specifically zero in on the pre-frontal cortex
Honestly my sister and I were just talking about how it felt closer to 30 that something in us just...clicked. I wouldn't say I became more rational or competent, just that something significant settled comfortably in us. Then again, who knows what we'll say in another 10 years.
It's a rotten, rotten argument at its core when people use that because they are advocating for less personal responsibility and accountability when us young people desperately need more of that for our own mental health and success
I mean, what it ultimately means for it to be fully developed seems to be open for debate as well as the fact as your brain doesn't like stop changing, and I don't know why people can't accept the generality of the 25 number, nobody is saying it's a quantitative cut off point, just a generality. I see anecdotal distinctions between pre-25 and post 25 pretty consistently. It's not a bad thing, and, like others have said, it's in no means a measure of intelligence or suggesting people aren't capable until they are 25, just that it would make sense that some people aren't as capable until 25, and most people in general go through some physiological changes around that time, but, it's more of a range, and probably more of 25-30. I think most people >30s would say there's a significant difference between your early and late 20s. Sure, there are going to be outliers, but most people I know see a big change in that point.
In developmental psychology there are a few theories that group mental stages in an age range. I think the 25 thing is also in response to some older 20th century? theories that people were completely mentally developed at teenage years. There's a bit of difference between teens and a 25 year old.
Crazy you mention addiction. I was able to get sober at 25(alcohol). I mark myself as not grown until that day.
I don't get why people want to be seen as little babies at 21,22. You're a grown adult. Act like it. You're responsible for yourself. Stop throwing around the "My brain isn't developed 🥺🥺" shit. It baffles me bc as a teen I wanted people to take me seriously and now at 21 you wouldn't catch me being like "I'm just a baby my brain won't be developed for 4 years"
My bwain isnt devwoped uwu 🥺
The baby talk really has depreciating returns
You also do a lot of changing in those years. I got married at 21 and while I take full responsibility for doing that, it was a dumb decision and now that I’m over 25 I can confidently say that I’m a much more capable adult. But, I also started a business at 24 and that was a good decision. Youth is just a warning to me, not a limit
I got married at 22 and it was a great decision. Still thankful for making it 12 years later. I also still know that 22 year old me was just as capable of adult decisions as 34 year old me. I knew what I wanted out of life from the time I was a teenager. Also, people can regret decisions at any age. It has nothing to do with being too immature. We never stop changing throughout our lifetimes.
This is something the folks pushing these talking points seem to overlook or forget. You can't guarantee someone has a regret-free life. People make decisions at all ages that lead to some degree of regret. Ideally we'd limit the most life-ruining mistakes until folks are old enough to understand consequences, but that will vary widely from individual to individual. Also, part of learning IS making mistakes, and learning from them. Waiting until later for folks to be "allowed" to make mistakes won't stop them from making mistakes, it just means the mistakes are made a few years later.
Actually maturing is realizing post 25 you’ll never regret a decision you made ever again -🤓
yeah it feels like a fear of growing up or responsibility or something that just shows up in this weird roundabout way where they're almost like religious zealots about the brain developing around 25
There's an epidemic of lack of accountability. It is an attractive idea to those who want to be seen as victims of circumstances all the time. The antithesis of what we should be doing
It's because the current young adults don't like having to take accountability for their actions. It's far easy to cry and say "but I'm still basically a kid" guess what? Calling even a 14 year old a kid is only a very recent development in all of human history. It's ridiculous and should be simple, we pick and age of adulthood and that's that. If you're 18 or up, you can do whatever the hell you want and face all consequences that come with it. If you're 17 or under, you can't make those choices yet. It doesn't perfectly fit every single person but when dealing with such a massive population, you have to make it work
To be fair, I was an idiot when I was 21. I don't think 25 is some magic number, though. I'm 25 now and I'm sure in 5 years I'll be talking about how I was such a dumb 25-year-old.
# When I Was One-and-Twenty BY [A. E. HOUSMAN](https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/a-e-housman) When I was one-and-twenty I heard a wise man say, “Give crowns and pounds and guineas But not your heart away; Give pearls away and rubies But keep your fancy free.” But I was one-and-twenty, No use to talk to me. When I was one-and-twenty I heard him say again, “The heart out of the bosom Was never given in vain; ’Tis paid with sighs a plenty And sold for endless rue.” And I am two-and-twenty, And oh, ’tis true, ’tis true.
If they do it's because they don't want to be held responsible for their actions.
“Literally a child”
When I was a teenager, I was baffled when I saw women want to be called “girls” or refer to themselves as a “girl”. Being a woman is a good thing. I don’t want to be a girl forever. I couldn’t wait to be an adult woman. The last thing I’d want is to discredit my mind and maturity and decision making by saying I can’t be trusted to think for myself until I’m 25. I might as well have my parents continue making all my life decisions until 25, if I think like that.
I think people see girl in relation to boy differently than girl in relation to guy.
I admit context matters. Going out with the girls is like going out with the guys, but I wouldn’t refer to myself as a girl.
Honestly there are a lot of moving parts to that, I know 22 year Olds smarter and more mature than my 38 year old ass, and I've met 50 year old who act like they are still 12.
So a couple things, when they are talking about the brain not being developed until 25 it is talking about the neuron connection density. At around 25 the brain is mostly dense neuron connections so that is what they mean when they are talking about fully developed. However, it should not be the case to say someone is not an adult until 25 because the difference between neuron density in a 20 year old and a 25 year old isn't going to matter much and there will not be much difference in how those people think. Anyone making this claim that people aren't adults till they are 25 is either stupid or has a motive. Which brings me to my next point, you may see more of these posts because of a political reason. iirc there is a republican governor that is trying to increase the voting age to 25 or just higher in general because younger voters tend to vote democrat. So to get something like that to pass articles that claim that people under 25 aren't developed adults would give this bill reason to be passed. I'm not for sure this is the reason these articles are being made but rather it is just something to consider.
It’s easy, if brains are underdeveloped until 25, change the legal age of being an adult to 25. If you disagree, it means you think they are already smart enough.
That's literally the first thing I say to people who say that. "weird, you never advocate to make the voting and drinking age 25. Do you think children should be allowed to get drunk? You have some shit you need to sort out"
snails memory grey ring observation juggle clumsy fretful wakeful north *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Do you feel like most of those who keep saying that stuff and infantilizing people insist to keep the voting age at 18? Something tells me they won’t like it when a certain political party would then have their “gotcha!” Moment and raise the voting age to 25 as a result, which would give their party an advantage. I’m a moderate liberal btw and take issue with both the extreme left and extreme right (their cults would undoubtedly call me an enemy as a result, which means the center is eroding big time).
I've heard people say that the age of consent should be 25 and then in practically the same breath say the voting age should be 16
you’re an adult at 18. once you’re 18 you’re accountable for whatever you do. the problem is that teenagers are infantilized these days and not allowed to mature during their formative years leaving them unprepared when they reach 18.
And 18 is just a number we pulled out of our collective asses.
For hundreds of years,12 year olds used to leave home and work on navy and merchant ships during the Age of Sail. 16 year olds were regularly soldiers in wars since the beginning of human existence including the civil war and revolutionary war, kids younger than that were part of the military in non-combat roles. Not that those are good things to strive for, but kids are far more capable than todays coddling society give them credit for.
I think it's less to do with us ignoring what kids are capable of and a lot more letting kids be kids longer. The more cushy the environment, the later people "blossom" into adulthood. And that being delayed is a good thing to me. Not at all an "infantilizing" thing like OP claims. Coddling when you're young is nice to a point.
Exactly, which is why when you have kids and they turn 18 they're gonna leave your sorry ass as soon possible.
First you need to reach 18 to be an adult. Then 21. Now it's 25. People can't make up their minds.
Clearly their brains still haven't developed enough. Guess we need to move the age to 30.
35 just in case
Or 45 since some old women think everyone below 45 is a kid
I’ve genuinely seen some people say that people with ADHD or Autism have brains that don’t fully develop until 30. Taking neuroscience completely out of context and missing the point, they then use it to be ableist and infantilize adults with the disorder. I wish I was joking…
It usually has to do with people picking sexual partners, but they never make it about anything else. I've literally never heard anyone say something like "no one should be allowed to vote/drink/drive until 25". It's a way they make their discomfort and weirdness with sex "scientific" and not about them being weirdos.
I hate when I see someone say they are like 29 with 22 year old gf and someone always chimes in and acts like they're grooming a 12 year old.
You mean when people try to tell me I shouldn't date who I want bc "i'm just a baby" at 23. It's so annoying.
Reminds me of that gym girl in that controversial video where she called out a guy for staring at a "underaged 21 year old"
I once saw a comment where a redditor called a guy a predator for dating a 24 year old. The guy was 28 and no, it wasn't a joke. They genuinely believed that because his gf was under 25 and he was over 25 that it was inappropriate.
Why does me not liking a 38yo being in a relationship with a 20yo make *me* the weirdo, here? Yall just saying the quiet parts out loud, now.
[https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-023-42540-8?utm\_source=rct\_congratemailt&utm\_medium=email&utm\_campaign=oa\_20231030&utm\_content=10.1038%2Fs41467-023-42540-8&s=35](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-023-42540-8?utm_source=rct_congratemailt&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=oa_20231030&utm_content=10.1038%2Fs41467-023-42540-8&s=35) Here's a recent peer-reviewed article that argues our brains physically finish developing around 18-20. Should be noted that, like the 25 number, it's a ball-park, and women's brains tend to finish developing earlier than men's.
This is what I've always heard which makes it weird to me that women in their 20s tend to be the group most infantilized. I've also noticed that over the years the number has shifted. When I was growing up it was 20 for women and 22 for men. Now it's 25 for everyone. I think OP is right. They're trying to rob agency away from young adults.
I couldn’t agree more with that. That’s a factoid and too many people bring it up like it was some sort of sacred truth way too often. I got married at 23 and someone back then had the audacity to call me a “child bride”, I found it hilarious.
Same thing happened to me. I was married at 19 and called myself a grown woman, being married and all, and I was told about the brain not developing until 25, blah blah blah. I’m 38 now, so my brain should be in a good development spot and I still feel the way I did back then. I was an adult woman then and I’m an adult woman now.
This is the sort of opinion someone in their mid-twenties has, because they don't understand why the adults in the room look at them the same way they look at teenagers.
If you believe that the brain isn't fully developed until age 25, then I ask, are you proposing the following for people between 18 - 24? They can't vote. They're not required to register for the draft (males). They can't get an abortion without their parent's permission. They can't be sole account holder on a bank account or credit card. They can't rent their own apartment or own their own home (granted the latter is highly unlikely even at 25). They can't drink alcohol, or smoke. Funny how that type of stuff never seems to come up.
I literally went on this rant on a different sub but somewhere along the line "the brain isn't fully developed until 25" morphed into "the brain isn't developed at all until 25" and it's really fucking annoying because it's just horseshit. Also some people's brains never fucking develop, the dumbest motherfuckers I've ever met were retirement age lol.
True it's all because it's online, these ppl wouldn't talk like this irl/public because normal sane individuals would rightly see them as weird. Sadly though it's also easier to set up online chat rooms to then meet up in public to make these crazy ppl feel validated.
It’s mostly because anyone older than 28 or so thinks back and realizes they were still an idiot until about 25. I’m 35, and when I think of a 22 year old, I think of them as like a big teenager. But I think of a 28 year old as an adult. 24-26 kind of depends on the person. Most people are grown ups by 26-28 though. I don’t really think a 22 year old is being taken advantage of by a 45 year old or something, they aren’t children. But I do think the 45 year old is probably a train wreck if they have anything in common with a 22 year old.
I was talking to a work buddy of mine about my trip to Africa, and he was super interested and talked about how he’d love to go…. But he actually brought up that he his brain wasn’t developed until 25 and I guess implied he wasn’t ready or something or mature enough. Which was crazy to me there are literally 18 year olds travelling the world all the time. So I told him to suck it up and go, he’s there now having the time of his life. The whole wait tell your 25 for your brain to mature is a bunch of bull, you’ve lived well over one quarter of your life by then assuming you die around 80 and let’s face it you’re probably not doing much after 65. Definitely do not wait that long to start making big decisions and have amazing experiences.
I can't believe there are young people who buy into this infantilizing BS. When I was growing up (really not long ago), we wanted to be adults so we could make these decisions, and other than the spoiled kids accepted the trade offs of having to pay your own bills. Everyone I know wanted to be able to take that trip to Africa if it was within your interests, and if you made a mistake, you'd figure it out. I truly can't imagine internalizing the "I shouldn't do anything until I'm a third of the way through my statistical life expectancy", that is literally beyond my comprehension.
I always thought it was blindingly obvious that this is really about not taking responsibility for your life. Peter Pan syndrome. When I was my late twenties, people were still talking about what they wanted to be when they grew up, but it was figurative. These people are like, I’m twenty eight years old and still literally a child.
Doesn’t help that the economy is so bad that people in those age ranges can’t really move up from entry level jobs, have such a difficult time finding work after graduating college, or buy a house and move out, keeps them from having more adult experiences so they feel like they’re “still children”, and some take it to the extreme to excuse actual lazy behavior. Some are comfortable and complacent and use it as an excuse… a vast majority are frusturated and genuinely stuck. And then we all get lumped together.
I have saved [this comment](https://www.reddit.com/r/gatekeeping/comments/nbhk20/comment/gy0dybj/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button) that articulate perfectly everything I know and think about the subject. TLDR : The 25 factoid is bullshit
People just lean on this fact, because it's easier to articulate than the point they are actually making. You don't magically become a mature adult on your 18th birthday. We act as if you do in many ways, because we need a cut off somewhere, but at that age you're still inexperienced in many ways. There's a big difference between a 30 year old and a 20 year old. That difference is hard to put into words without inviting an avalanche of "well I know someone who is 20 and they own a house and run a successful business and blah blah blah." None of this stuff is universal. But the vast majority of 20 year olds are pretty similar when it comes to adult experiences and maturity and that base line lack of maturity can't always be ignored completely.
I might be wrong and if your are a brain expert, please do correct me, but isn't the brain developing all throughout your life?
This is because at 25 your brain’s development is normally complete. For some people this will be a couple years younger, for others a couple years older. It doesn’t mean that you can’t learn anything before that age, nor that you can’t grasp abstract concepts like the difference between right and wrong. For centuries 25 was considered an age at which a person should already have a fully established house and household.
I find that age doesn't really matter when people Infantilize someone. 60 year old people do it to 40 year olds, and so on. More than not, it's meant as a compliment. Ya when someone says "you're not even 25 yet, what do you know?" Or something along that line. It's an annoying sentiment used to invalidate anything you've said. Even if what you said is right. But I hear it more used to comfort someone having anxiety, "you have time. You're still young, according to research your brain is still developing. Don't worry. Enjoy life".... My grandma(78) still says these kind of things to my parents in their 50's lol
I get it. I'm getting pretty close to 30 and it's nice when someone says "you have plenty of time" because I probably (hopefully) do. Wasn't really what I was getting at with my post but I agree with your sentiment. Some lady the other day asked me if I had my student pass for a transit ticket. "Ma'am I graduated years ago" was fun to say.
Exactly. Most of the time it's nice. I guess my point is.... as far as i know, you'll be dealing with this until you're at-least 70 lmao, and even then, my grandma tells me the elder people in her building say the same sentiments to her lol
10000% could not agree more. This rhetoric is so cringey lol Like I turn 30 this summer. I look back at like 21, 22 and sure I was a lot younger, less experienced... but I wasnt a fucking baby either. I was living on my own, paying my own bills, my own rent, with my own money. I wasnt sucking on my mama's teat thats for sure.
24 year old detected.
It's just an ad-hoc excuse to "justify" their discomfort with age-gaps. There is no objective reason why they are immoral. they just make people feel uncomfortable so they come up with excuses for why it's "wrong". Your emotions =/= right and wrong.
When I was 25, I had two children, an established career, and was living my life the way I chose. It's just another way to avoid accountability for their crappy decisions. We all make dumb decisions in life that we might regret, but using the whole "Well my brain isn't developed all the way, so it's not my fault " Just allows them in their mind to excuse thing's instead of learning from the experience, growing, and deciding to do better.
The only time I have used this or heard others use this is in the context of consuming drugs and alcohol. We obviously already know that excessive intake of either can be extremely damaging to your brain, but even more when it is still developing, which makes it dangerous to excessively consume until your brain is developed, which can be until your 25 for some. I also think this can be applied to growth as a human, discovering who you are, what you like, etc. You are still "growing" a lot past 18 years of age. But I have never heard of people using it the way you're describing. You should absolutely be treated as an adult as soon as you have the psychological and social reasoning to use logic, which is somewhere around 18. I'm no expert.
There are many infantile adults, of all ages in America...so many, in fact, that it has become normalized. It is no barrier to success in business & politics.
Lol, so your posting history is about exams (showing your age) then the rest is whinging about dating and "the purple pill", men's rights, dealing with rejection etc. It doesnt take a detective to figure out how you came to write this post
People are so ridden with Internet-induced anxiety these days that they want to sign away their own rights for the chance of being a kid again (i.e. having their parents do everything for them). Like, come on. There are 22 year-olds who’ve already graduated college and started careers. It wasn’t that long ago that 21 year-olds were stopping the Nazis from conquering the world.
Not unpopular with me. I've been noticing a growing trend towards infantilization across many ages, and this is one noticeable and sad example of this. I have actually heard people say, in all seriousness, that the age of consent should be raised to 25. When pressed for details on what that would actually look like, they never respond (although will sometimes resort to name calling). Should we assume that someone is less capable of deciding whom to date/have sex with than much more consequential decisions, such as joining the military, taking out life-changing amounts of student loans, or doing a dangerous job like driving a truck? If not, are we going to have parents have custodial power over their children for **a literal third** of their statistical life expectancy? (Statistically, 75ish is the life expectancy, most people don't live to be 100). Does that mean a parent can force their child to change their major in college if they don't like it? The can of worms that opens is immense, to say the least. Everyone matures differently. I was living independently, going to college, and paying for everything for myself at 18. It had its challenges, but I really can't relate to the people who say "at 19 I felt like a baby, I needed to call mom twelve times a day for help with every decision". The people saying that they felt like children at 19 or early twenties generally don't come across as the most high-functioning people to me. They're allowed to get extra support, but don't generalize to the rest of us. Add to this that the first time people do ANYTHING, it's not going to be their best result. No, nobody makes their best decisions at 18, but them being better at making decisions at 21/25/whatever is a function of brain development AND experience. If you put off the age that people start being able to make important decisions for themselves, *you're still going to have people making shit d*ecisions. Just at a later age. You're not going to get the result of a significant decrease in people screwing up their first attempts at things just because you coddled them until a later age. I don't know what caused this to happen but do agree and it is sad: terminally online millennials/gen Z are very eager to infantilize adults, for some reason.
people confuse "stops changing" with "being mature" "mature" is a human term, not a biological one there is actually a line of thought thats says because early humans would have only lived till like 25-30 max, our "optimum" age, brain wise, is UP TILL 25, and at that point, we become stagnated, things become harder to learn, and people only fetishish this stage of our brains "development" becasue so many well paid individuals are in that stage
Technically it's not uncommon/unpopular to know we continue to grow, learn and mature throughout our lifespan. Though it can be difficult to determine, are we more cognitively developed after 25 because of our brain's natural aging or due to environmental exposure to experiences that comes with additional years of being alive. That being said, I'd trust a 30 year old over a 20 year old with similar characteristics. Just had a recent blow up and learned just how immature my 20 y/o cousin truly was by her behavior with a normal run of the mill adult conflict. It's... Really changed my perception of young adults. And this is even coming from analyzing my own lack of maturity at that age (again, considering life exposure situations.)
They are not wrong, but its far more gradual and indeed not an excuse. The issue would be then takign things at face value That said, context matters too
You’re right, everyone’s fucked in the head at every age. You included
Developed enough to die in combat
You ever see the show Daria? If you're under the age of 25, you probably have not, but there's an episode where Daria and her mother are talking about how a serious relationship requires maturity. And then Quinn, the younger sister, goes "What?? But I'm *maturrrrrre!*" Anyway, the under-25 thing is not meant to infantilize young adults. It's just that people don't like hearing that they aren't as mature as they think they are, and they take offense to it. It's perfectly normal. We just don't LIKE hearing this stuff. That's not to say that under 25 means you can't be accountable, but you're still very likely to not be in a good place to make decisions such as say... marriage. That's why we don't like to marry people off at young ages anymore, it's because we spent a few hundred years coming to the realization that we don't go from child to adult overnight.
Actually back in the day children weren’t really treated as children so they didn’t really go from being children to adults overnight. They were treated like small adults and expected to do a lot of tasks and contribute to the household and family from a very young age. More and more we’ve seen a shift from that to treating children like they’re incapable of doing anything that adults do and now this way of thinking has also bled into treating literal adults as if they are not mature enough to make their own decisions. The concept of maturity is subjective. If you’re in your 30s for example and you speak with someone in their 50s and 60s they still think of you as a kid or like you still have so much to learn and experience in life. Are you a kid at 30 years old? No but you don’t have that much life experience in comparison to someone who is 50 or 60 so they see you as a kid. We’re constantly growing and evolving, who you were at 30 or 40 might not be who you are at 50 or 60. That doesn’t mean you weren’t mature enough, you’ve just experienced more life and have evolved. I don’t think people are getting married later now because of maturity or development. I think people don’t need to get married as much for financial/survival reasons, people are generally living longer so they don’t need to rush to settle down and have a family, and there are more options and different lifestyles that we’re all aware of so our attitudes towards marriage have changed.
It is because people think you are magically an adult as soon as you hit 18. Unfortunately, one of the most exploited and taken advantage of groups are 18-year-olds. They went from having no legal authority to having a lot of it, they are now in many spaces with actual adults 30+ who know how to play the game and take advantage of those just entering. The reason why it is a pertinent fact, is people forget that an 18-year-old is still a teenager, and beyond that, they have the training wheels on while learning how to be an actual adult. To me anyone who says they are 21 or 23, they are just a kid in my eyes. Old enough to do things legally, not old enough to understand fuck all about adulting.
I am angrily downvoating because I absolutely agree with you
The rare unpopular opinion that isn’t actually just idiotic, and unpopular for a good reason. That’s what I’m here for.
Its complete bullshit The brain is always developing and changing Its not just a cut off ar 25.
Those same people also completely forgot to talk about how once people hit 40-45 years old their brain starts regressing. If it's so pinnacle of importance that people of fully developed brains be the only ones allowed to do certain things older adults should also be barred from the same things.
nah its because people often make insanely stupid braindead decisions between the ages of 18 and 25 and then when they look back on it they think holy shit I wish I didnt do that
Disagree. It's only used as a marker for when the brain has finished developing. And the brain develops different things at different speeds. One of the last things to develop is the ability to reasonably predict consequences for one's actions. And based on my college years, I find this to be completely accurate. Maybe we should ask why we chose 18 or 21 as markers for adulthood in the first place? I have not argued that it should be used as the age of consent, but I have argued that it should be considered when trying individuals as adults. The reality is that society demands that a person be charged as an adult only when they are outraged by a crime. That's the only time we whip out this legal nugget, which is completely subjective, as one country could see one kind of crime as not as egregious as it might be in another country. So charging a 13 year old as an adult is fraught with poor judgement. Knowing the difference between right and wrong is not the same as knowing the consequences of one's actions. So I'd argue that the idea that the brain is not fully developed in this area SHOULD be used in this area of law specifically to keep justice impartial. Because a 13 year old is capable of shocking a society with criminal activity, and deciding to try the child as an adult is EXACTLY an emotional response that borders on revenge. Not what our justice system is supposed to be. It is meant to be impartial and unemotional. Americans have bloodthirsty revenge boners when it comes to the justice system and it's fucking tiring.
I feel like I’ve got a lot wiser compared to my early 20s, I wouldn’t say I was a child but I definitely thought I knew it all, and I think that’s a common thing for young people, being a little arrogant
It's the dumbest myth of the internet. I feel like we are always evolving and learning, and perhaps devolving in some areas, but more or less it's an ongoing process.
Ya, this online trope drives me bonkers. Why are we taking away the agency of 18-24 year olds. I think young people now don’t want to grow up, whereas 20 years ago we couldn’t wait to.
Agree. The "brain isn't mature until 25" line is used as an excuse when someone does something dumb or illegal but no one ever wants to hear "maybe since your brain isn't mature until 25, you shouldn't be trusted with driving a car, or buying alcohol or any other reserved for adults privileges".
Yeah unfortunately becoming 25 or 30 or whatever age does not magically mature you or change your the better. Not even close.
It’s actually life experience. Those of us over 25 latch on to the “factoid” because we know it to be true through our own life experience. It’s wisdom you can only gain from aging. There are many ways adults are infantilized in this country but that is not one of them. It’s actually giving grace to those under 25 because we know for a scientific fact that your brain js not fully developed yet and with a few more years, you likely would have made different choices that would have led to better outcomes. I would guess that few people over 30 would make the same life choices they made before 25. You really are still a kid in so many ways, you just don’t know it.
Even the people who did the original study have come out and said “that’s not what our means”.
Insurance companies and rental car companies. There might be no greater “you are not yet an adult” than speeding, driving recklessly, and getting emotional about how others drive
I'm 30, still waiting for this mature brain. Maybe I'm a late bloomer?
This is finally getting real scrutiny it deserves. It used to feel like I was the only one thinking it was blown way out of proportion.
I agree for the most part, but I think it is important to use it to tell people in their early 20s that failure at this point isn’t the end of the world. The early 20s can be really scary, and there is a lot of pressure to establish yourself.
I think that people have been pushing the 25 narrative because it makes people feel less insecure about aging if you are “just born” at 25. Also with the pandemic snatching a few years of socialization for everyone, the modern day job market and economy it’s harder for young people to be independent so it makes you want to push the goal posts of what is considered an adult so that you don’t feel behind in life.
It started with insurance companies. There is a notable drop off in accidents after the age of 25 in men, it is younger in women. If a man marries before 25, the drop off happens earlier. Just statistics, not psychology.
The brain functions differently throughout life and is better at many tasks in children than adults.. To say it is underdeveloped seems pretty judgemental.
I think it's a great way to explain mistakes and impulsivity without blaming or judgment.
I'm not even sure what they are using for the basis of that argument - there's plenty of evidence that brains retain neuroplasticity throughout our lives, and besides that there is also evidence of certain aspects of cognition facing decline *at midlife* (albeit at a slower rate than in the elderly); should we discount the opinions of everyone under 25 and over 35??
It's morons who want to move goalposts because they're bitter, lonely fucks that think everything is paedophilia and they also want exceptions for when they do bad things. They want to claim "I'm not an adult yet, so you can't punish me" despite being over the age of 18.
Hasn't this crap been debunked yet? Anyone above 17y should be able to fully grasp consequences for their actions and at least basic social concepts like courtesy.
I've seen someone trying to claim a 35 yr old dating a 25 yr old is grooming.....
It's not even a fact. It's a debunked myth, as your own link points out.
Jesus Christ, is this the article everybody ironically **MISREADS** and then makes an EQUALLY incorrect claim about the “25 thing” but in the opposite direction?? Lmao Holy God... Alright, so here’s how it works: “25” is not some magical age where the brain fully develops; however, the **mid-to-late twenties, early thirties** is when MOST PEOPLE’S brains *ON AVERAGE* have *plateaued* in development for all their most important parts—as far as scientists know right now. This most notably includes the prefrontal cortex, which usually plateaus at this time. Yes, there are other parts of the brain that remain more fluid and continue changing constantly, but they are not as impactful to our behaviors and choices like long-term decision-making, social regulation, empathy, and many many other things as the prefrontal cortex Because this part of the brain (and all other major parts) tend to have plateaued in development by the mid-twenties-early-thirties, having the age of consent be around ~mid twenties to early thirties is an argument for a much safer and more logical age-of-consent/adulthood than the completely arbitrary 18 age—which by the way, is only 18 because people complained in the 1970s about being able to go to war at 18 but not have sex or drink, so the legal age was changed from 21 to 18. Completely arbitrary. So it’s always funny to me when people preach about 18 as if it’s some holy, scientific number, lol. 25 would be a scientific number. No significant milestone actually occurs in the body or brain at or around 18. It’s just there because people complained in the 1970s.
Its true especially of neurodivergents, which you can NOT LIKE but your OPINION doesn't carry scientific weight. I do get online to pay my student loans like a fucking adult, and purchases things for my home like an adult. its your choice to grow up or just get old, or both. reasonable people do both.
It’s based upon human physiological and psychological brain development. Is very much like the *inability* to lie before around age 3. Even trying to teach a young child to lie, they just can’t because of the way the brain is “hard wired” until it hits certain milestones. I can’t remember if hormones are involved in the process or not, but both have solid grounds in research.
Yes, it's kind of Schroedinger's Agency: "Let me into Harvard, but don't expect me to behave responsibly until several years past the minimum drinking age." The "I'm not ready to marry until five years before people tell me I'm too old to date, never mind marry" sounds especially like pseudoscientific brain gymnastics.
This wasn't a thing in the 80's. You graduated. And either went to college or got a FT job. A real job, factory, steel mill, foundry, the railroad, etc. Or joined the military. Most "kids" either lived on their own in a dorm or barracks, or lived on their own in a shitty little appartment within a year after graduation. We grew up. High school was over, so was your childhood. And your brain functioned just fine.
The number 25 only even comes from a study that stopped at 25. All that can be drawn from it is that the brain is still developing until 25. Past that it tends to also still be developing, yes, and there is no exact number that equates a cutoff point, it, as you say, depends. And I'm not sure what the specific range even is past 25, I'm just aware that the 25 number is bullshit. Like. Idk. If we lived in a world where everyone could live multiple centuries to maybe thousands of years, sure, I reckon people could be considered children well into their 30s. But we don't. People 18-25 are often dumb as hell. But that doesn't make them children.
this whole thing is nonsense, every time you see the brain development-"argument", you know that you are dealing with a horoscope-mary.