Inside the teenage brain

Just as many teenagers in Baghdad worry about finding a job as do in New York. Teens around the globe think the war on terror has made the world a more dangerous place, but they believe people should be able to settle in whichever country they choose. So says a fascinating new BBC World Service ...

By Carolyn O'Hara

December 5, 2006, 10:22 PM

Just as many teenagers in Baghdad worry about finding a job as do in New York. Teens around the globe think the war on terror has made the world a more dangerous place, but they believe people should be able to settle in whichever country they choose. So says a fascinating new BBC World Service poll of thousands of teens in 10 cities around the world. Some notable results:

Nearly three quarters of the teens polled said the war on terror isn't making the world a safer place.
Half of the teens polled in Baghdad said they don't plan to get married.
Most teens said they wouldn't marry someone of a different religion: Eighty-two percent in Baghdad said they wouldn't, 57 percent in Delhi, 42 percent in Moscow, and 37 percent in London.
Twenty percent of all the teens polled think women shouldn't have the same rights as men. Those responses hit 46 percent in Cairo, 29 percent in Nairobi, and 23 percent in Jakarta.
Nearly half believe homosexuals shouldn't have the same rights as heterosexuals.
The teens in each city were given a list of issues like terrorism, climate change, career, hunger, etc, and asked to choose the one most important to them right now. Education came out on top in New York, Nairobi, Cairo, Lagos, Rio, Jakarta, and Moscow. In London, Delhi, and Baghdad, terrorism was #1.
Big majorities in each city agreed that people should be able to live wherever they like. But once immigrants arrive somewhere, beliefs about integration vs. isolation differ widely. Nearly half of all the teens polled believe that new immigrants should adopt the culture of the new country, but 38 percent answered that keeping apart and maintaining one's own culture was best.

Be sure to check out the rest of the poll for interesting answers on AIDS, climate change, religion vs. science, overpopulation, crime, and abortion. For my part, I'm still trying to wrap my brain around these results:

Teens were asked if they would commit a crime that would instantly turn them into millionaires if they knew they would get away with it. In London, 31 percent said yes.
Twenty-four percent of teens in Baghdad said they would feel safer if they carried a weapon. So did nineteen percent of teenage New Yorkers.
Teens were asked: "Would you consider taking action which may result in innocent people dying if you felt very strongly about a cause?" Most said no. A quarter of London teens said yes, a figure so surprising to the BBC that they sought out advice from psychologists.

Carolyn O'Hara is a senior editor at Foreign Policy.