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ability to it," Steinberg wrote in a paper titled "Risk Taking in Adolescence," published in Current Directions in Psychological Science in April 2007.
• And teens don't take risks because they don't have enough information. Efforts to give teens more information about risky behaviors "typically result in improvements in young people's thinking about these phenomena but seldom change their actual behavior," Steinberg wrote.
• Faulk County Deputy Sheriff Brent Koens sees this in the students he teaches in the Drug Abuse Resistance Education Program, and those teens he encounters otherwise.
• "(Underage alcohol use and driving) is a bad idea, and I think the kids all know that," Koens said. "Everything we teach in an educational setting reinforces that, and many get the message. Still, some don't, and it's unfortunate and completely preventable."
• The problem for teens is that making decisions about risky behaviors requires the use of two different systems in the brain: one that uses logic and reasoning, and another system that serves as an inner regulator--controlling impulses, regulating emotions, delaying gratification, and resisting peer influence. 
• While the logical system is pretty much fully developed by the time a person is 15, the emotion-override part of the brain is not yet fully mature in teenagers. In fact, research shows that this part of the brain is not done developing until around the age of 25.
• This means that in calm situations, a teenager can be relied upon to make a good decision. But when emotions are involved, teens aren't reliably using logic to make their decisions.
• One especially emotion-inducing situation is when teens are around their peers. In one study of video-game players, teenagers took 50 percent more risks when their friends were watching than they did when they were playing alone, according to Steinberg. Adults in the study performed about the same whether others were watching or not.
• "In adolescence, then, not only is more merrier--it is also riskier," Steinberg wrote.
•
• Young and impressionable
• The fact that the teenage brain is still developing also means that the risks that teens take can be more dangerous to them than they would be to adults.
• For example, teens that use drugs and alcohol can get "addicted faster, longer and stronger," according to Dr. Frances Jensen, who spoke at TEDMED in 2010, as

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