Changing adolescent habits

The expectation that a transfer of knowledge on the topic of disinformation is likely to be ineffective at best is supported by classroom experience concerning similar topics, like education on psychoactive substances or sex education. In these cases the traditional didactics’ track record is unimpressive. The probable cause for the apparent lack of effectiveness in these fields is that the method of transfer of knowledge presupposes that the decisions to consume information, junk food, alcohol and drugs, and the decision to engage in sexual behavior are rational and are firmly rooted in adequate prior knowledge. According to this paradigm, arguments in favor and against are constantly weighed by individual adolescents before coming to a conclusion. By transferring additional knowledge it is believed that the arguments that point out the dangers of unwanted activities will gain more weight and thus will win out in adolescent choices. An ever growing body of neuroscientific research finds that adolescent decision-making rarely is rational, and is even less so when it concerns risky behavior. Raging emotions, peer pressure, a rapidly developing dopamine system and a far from developed control system in the brain are far more likely to steer adolescent behavior; the factors that lead adolescents to engage in risky activity are social and emotional, not cognitive. Jonathan Haidt (2006) states: “Trying to make children behave ethically by teaching them to reason well is like trying to make a dog happy by wagging its tail. It gets causality backwards.” During the moment of deciding whether to engage or not to engage in risky behavior, for adolescents knowledge and intentions are far less important than mental shortcuts that are capable of withstanding the social and emotional pressures. Education on topics involving risky behavior therefore needs to empower mental shortcuts that might steer adolescents away from deciding to engage in destructive risky behavior. Daniel Siegel (2013) provides a strategy that actually worked than when it comes to getting teens “to say no to smoking”. What does not work are the strategies of giving adolescents more factual information and of frightening them with horrifying images. “The strategy that worked was to inform them about how the adults who owned the cigarette companies were brainwashing them to smoke so that they could get their money.” This strategy provided students with mental shortcuts to be able to stand up against smoking.