15 percent of U.S. teens think they’ll die young
If you think that teens take so many dumb risks because they believe they’re immortal, this study will make you think again.
University of Minnesota Medical School researcher Iris Browsky found that one in seven teens believes that they’ll die before age 35, and that such fatalism is strongly linked to greater risk taking behaviors, such as illicit drug use, suicide attempts, fighting and unsafe sexual activity.
“While conventional wisdom says that teens engage in risky behaviors because they feel invulnerable to harm, this study suggests that in some cases, teens take risks because they overestimate their vulnerability, specifically their risk of dying,” Borowsky said in a statement. “These youth may take risks because they feel hopeless and figure that not much is at stake.”
The study found that nearly 25 percent of youth living in households that receive public assistance believe that they will die young, as do more than 29 percent of American-Indian, 26 percent of African-American, 21 percent of Hispanic and 15 percent of Asian youth. Just 10 percent of their Caucasian peers have such a pessimistic outlook on the future.
