I don’t disagree with this, but it doesn’t apply to all of them. And I think a lot of adults are like this; many of them can be easily persuaded by snippets they see in the media or further entrenched in their views. Many of adults also vote selfishly, not considering all the policies put forward by a party/candidate.
At least teenagers have the excuse of not having to think about it until they turn 18.
IMO the average 16 year old is better at questioning what they read online compared to the average 60 year old.
All the talk about algorithms influencing 16/17 year olds are as valid for us ‘adults’ too. More so for many.
Do I think all 16/17 year olds are sensible enough to make balanced pragmatic decisions on politics? Not really. But I think that about the whole population.
No disagreement there.
I think that this makes sense from one point. For one the age of 18 as being legally classed as a Adult and all that comes with it is largely arbitrary anyway so standardising it as the ages at which you are allowed to under take a job and pay taxes on such earnings makes sense to me.
As for the whole brain development stops at 25, that was just bad research. For one it’s been proven that neurodiverse people (of a large number of conditions that come under that) go well into thier 30’s of the same type of development that this study mentioned, but I think most importantly. The actual study that caused all this ‘Brain is done at 25’ nonsense was becuase they just stopped doing brain scans of people past thier mid 20’s, we have no data to support 25 being a stop of any kind becuase we barely any of that kind of data for a large group of people after 25. It was all extrapolation and in fact the study itself is very open about this and never puts any age on anything beyond ‘mid 20’s’.
Then with the part of being easily swayed, that applies anyone and everyone imo. At one time it was newspapers with misleading and false headlines, then you added in TV with similar badly researched stories and now you have that all online and add in short form video content alongside written word. I was the sort of kid who was very interested in Politics, sat in on the Politics classes where I could, watched both UK and US election results come in on the day (didn’t stay up overnight in those days), and if you picked a topic being debated in either of those countries at random I probably would either know nothing or only a small amount becuase it didn’t matter to me yet. I had no right to vote and influence things (and don’t in the US meaning I still don’t know thta much about the average vote there).
And to those of you who would raise that, if you picked a random adult off the street rather than a random 16-17 year old cadet do you think the chances are realistically that much higher on issues similar to the ones you questioned, I can’t be sure but I would say the chances are they would be a bit better but not by much.
Also the 18-25 year old category is usually the age group who exercises thier right to vote the least so I’m not sure how many 16-17 year olds would actually put in the effort to do some research and go vote as sad as that is.
That makes me think of a potential bonus from this change! Maybe the government will be more inclined to get schools to teach about our political system and voting, and why it’s important, which might make it more likely that young people will turn out to vote.
In which case are you also saying that yen ages for smoking, drinking, driving, Jury Service and being treated as an adult by the criminal justice system should also all come down to 16?
in my opinion, this is not unique to teenagers, many adults have this approach to politics too, and even blame Government for issues which doesn’t fall into their remit suggesting “the Govt should do something about it”.
too few people have a grasp on politics and Govt to understand what they are voting for - and only care about one-two items (Brexit vote an ideal example of this).
and the parties know it, so they offer the necessary sound bites to suggest “we will do this/won’t do that” which is what the voters want to hear - their mind is made up based on that soundbite and their vote cast
seconded (and realise i have simply echoed your post)
Just because it’s arbitrary doesn’t mean it doesn’t work in terms of our societal structure.
The ages for driving is already 16 on Motorbikes and 17 on cars so it’s basically already at that point.
As for smoking and drinking, I personally have no intrest in doing either and so actually don’t have an opinion on when they should be allowed, but in that case. If a new age was to be decided then I think you would have to look at the medical evidence and decide at what age consumption of those poisons would have minimal affect on life long development but I think that would result in an age far higher than the country would accept.
As for Jury Service, I think you should be able to be called for Jury service at the point where you would be tried as an adult, however due to the current rules about education till 18, anyone under 18 would likely get an exemption for their studies anyway.
Has the age for motorcycles been dropped then? I didn’t think that it had; 16 for mopeds, certainly, but 17 for motorcycles.
I’m mid 40’s and still not quite developed in the cranuim cavity…or so my wife says 
I was in favour of voting to leave brexit, that didn’t really work out did it
What a woman does with their womb is up to them and doesn’t have anything to do with should 16 year olds be allowed to vote.
You’re right, I forgot to check the size of engine/terminology, each level of the moped to unrestricted motorcyles have thier own age requirements. But you are allowed on most roads with a Moped so driving around a local area is definetly possible from 16 for those going down that route.
I think that cars should have similar style age restrictions. I also subscribe to making all car driver ride a motorcyle for at least 2 years - this would significantly increase awareness of other road users!! Riding and driving for over 30 years, certainly helps with awareness.
Fixed that for you
