17 December

Teenagers get bad press on most things. But to me they've always been the age-group that keeps society honest. "Researchers originally found a correlation between a teenager's being adopted and a variety of negative behaviours, such as using drugs, drinking alcohol, and skipping school. In subsequent research, they found this correlation was entirely explained by the 19 percent of self-reported adopted teenagers who weren't actually adopted. Follow-up research has found that a meaningful percent of teenagers tell surveys they are more than seven feet tall, weigh more than four hundred pounds, or have three children. One survey found 99-percent of students who reported having an artificial limb to researchers were kidding."