Do you ever feel like you hear something so many times it becomes background noise? That’s how students feel about the repetitive safety speeches we’ve been hearing since we were in elementary school. It seems like, after a while, those messages lose their meaning and students just brush them off. Most teens don’t listen well in the first place, let alone to strangers broadcasted on a screen. It’s a cycle from generation to generation: the adults—who have had the experiences—are talking, but the teenagers aren’t hearing them. Previous generations make mistakes, warn the next generation not to make their mistakes, and then they don’t listen and make mistakes anyway.
Unfortunately, most teens have the mindset that bad things will never happen to them because they are “in control.” Therefore, it takes a tragic event to change their perspective. For example, if a complete stranger overdosed on pills and died it would not have the same effect on you as if the same thing happened to your family member or close friend. The preaching on the videos has no effect until you have experienced the things they are talking about.
It’s different in middle school. When you’re not exposed to drugs and other “bad things” it’s easier to resist. Drug campaigns at that age seem easier to follow. When you get to high school there’s clear peer pressure and easier access to things that we’ve never been exposed to before. At this age, teens are more influenced by their peers than by adults or teachers. We see people doing things that we were told as kids were bad, and those people seem fine, so we don’t see the problem. It also creates a rebellion effect: the more adults say no, the more we are tempted to say yes.
Teens’ brains are still maturing, and are ultimately immature at this age. This is not an excuse for bad behavior, but it does contribute to the decision making process. There’s no regard for the future, but only what’s happening in the present moment.
The severity of the end result also contributes to the decision-making process. For instance, popping pills seems less scary in comparison to driving drunk, getting into an accident and dying. This might have something to do with the relative success of teen drunk driving campaigns compared to the success of teen pill abuse campaigns.
Don’t lose total faith in our generation; there are ways to get through to us. For instance, it’s easier to relate to cases from people in our age group. When an adult is featured in a video, we feel like we can’t relate because we’re not the same age. Cases that relate to us really hit home, especially when they are less extreme. It’s easier to shrug off an extreme event, rather than an accident that could happen to anyone. If it’s relatable to us, there’s a higher shock factor.
Teens aren’t going to listen to something they don’t believe applies to them. Until you eliminate the feeling of “It will never happen to me,” campaigns will not be effective.