Two systems mature on very different timelines during adolescence. The brain’s reward circuitry, particularly the regions that process social feedback, approval, attention, and belonging, comes online early and runs hot throughout the teenage years. The prefrontal cortex, which governs impulse control, weighs long-term consequences, and helps regulate emotional reactions, is still years from finishing its development. The result is a brain exquisitely sensitive to social reward and comparatively under-equipped to regulate its response to it. A notification, a like, a reply left on read, registers with a teenager’s brain far more intensely than it would for an adult, while the internal brakes that might otherwise say “this can wait” are still being built.
