I normally don’t associate an actor like Rainn Wilson with expert knowledge on how the teenage brain works, but in a recent YouTube collaboration video he stepped up to that plate and talked about why teenagers are drama queens.

The collaboration video is an effort to promote Rainn Wilson’s new YouTube channel and website, Soul Pancake, that launches on August 23, 2012. He says the site will be devoted to “exploring what it means to be human.” He says they’ll be discussing philosophy, art, science, culture, and spirituality, including issues like the meaning of life, our origin, and more.

It always interests me whenever celebrities like this start talking directly about spirituality. And due to his popularity among teenagers and young adults, dropping in from time to time on what he’s teaching might be a good idea.

In this video he answers a question about why a 13-to-25-year-old’s feelings and emotions are often over-exaggerated from the reality of their situation. Why do young people freak out over things that are seemingly not that big of a deal? What causes them to make a situation that normally would be something an adult was just pass over to something that becomes filled with drama?

While Rainn’s personality comes out in the video, they actually discuss this issue on an intelligent level. Here are some of the resources they refer to in the description text of the video:

• Teenage Brains [National Geographic]
• The Teen Brain: It’s Just Not Grown Up Yet [NPR]
• Brilliant, Brazen, Teenage Brains [Psychology Today]
• The Teenage Brain [Boston Children’s Hospital]

Watch the video below or here on YouTube, “Teen Brain.”

Posted on July 24, 2012