"Teens love to be miserable"

http://www.canada.com/Teens+love+miserable+study/2246630/story.html

According to the study highlighted in the article, teenagers seek out negative emotions, while adults and the elderly seek happiness. When teenagers feel both negative and positive emotions together, they either do not wish for the negative feelings to end or they wish to actually prolong them. The study accounts this tendency to the characteristic negative emotionality of teenagers. Adults and the elderly on the other hand wish to enhance happiness in whatever means possible, sometimes turning to antidepressants.

This study was pretty humorous to me. I don't believe anyone intentionally seeks out misery. Just the thought of that would sound ridiculous to anyone. I think part of the findings of this study relates to the fact that teenagers naturally are faced with a number of issues they must try to juggle, issues coming from changes in development and the world around them. Often times, these conflicts get so overwhelming and seem to be an every-day occurrence that it is easy for teens to fall into a pessimistic mindset where they do not feel happiness can be so easily attained. For these reasons, they may say they wish to feel unhappy because it is what they've become accustomed to, yet the real issue is that they just do not know how to effectively deal with conflicting emotions. Either way, I still think it's a stretch to go as far as to say "teens love to be miserable."