If you are a teenager, you have probably heard an adult say, “Ugh, teenagers these days.” If this is something you have heard, you are not alone. This same notion sees teens as rude, selfish, uninterested, and lazy.

There seems to be a very popular, pre-conceived notion that depicts teenagers as bratty and rebellious. Teenagers can be very mature and have strong aspirations and goals that they want to achieve. However, these positive aspects are often overshadowed by the negative ideas that adults associate with us. If one only listened to adults, it would seem that all we can do during these seven years of our lives, is spend time on social media, text, and get mad at our parents.

This leaves teens with a very defeated feeling and, personally speaking, this has made me believe that at my young age, I cannot accomplish anything big. It seems like the bar is never set high for us, and that has made me less likely to want to work hard to set it higher. We are the future, and I feel that we should be more trusted and built up, instead of being torn down every chance people get.

These days, teenagers are often misunderstood, because now we have so much technology at our fingertips, we are automatically less grateful for the things in life than our parents, and grandparents were.Because we get joy from using our phones and computers, we are often labeled as anti-social, because we aren’t talking face to face all the time. Yes, it is true that we have grown up very different from our parents grandparents, and others, but we could not control the fact that we grew up in a time when technology is thriving.

By nature, teens obsess over things, and we get joy out of using our technology, because it is very popular. When we see adults always talking on the phone, sending emails, texting, and using other forms of technology, we never hear anything about how technology runs their lives. It seems like, as teenagers, we are a bigger target for these stereotypes.

The teenage years are the years where people find themselves. They find their interests and what they want to be in life. Because of this important time in one’s life, while they are finding their identities, adults instead of shooting teens down should be building them up. Belief in a person can be a great motivation for his or her future. We have so many interests in the arts, politics, health, teaching and more. We have so much to offer the world. It is time to listen to teens and stop the negativity, and see that we have new ideas that can improve our world.