Child of Our Time

Episode
Changing Minds
Broadcast Info
2017 (59 mins)
Description
In 2000 the BBC embarked on a ground-breaking project to follow the lives of 25 of the millennium’s first British babies. 16 year later these children of our time are almost fully grown. They are now free to live by themselves, have sex, get married, pay taxes, have kids of their own and even die for their country.
In this two part series, BBC1 finds out what it really means to be a 16 year old in the 21st century. It’s an age raw with emotion, in a world where everything is changing. Our teenagers have grown up bodies and growing up brains - they are children no more. So what is shaping the adults they are becoming? To what extent are they influenced by their biology or their upbringing? And how are they affected by the changing digital world of today’s social media generation?
Over the last 16 years we’ve seen our children face many challenges from disease, to divorce and family death. As each teenager now embarks on one of the most profound transformations of their lives, we see how the experiences of their youth are guiding them through their first steps into adulthood.
With surprising new research in human biology and neuroscience we reveal how the most baffling aspects of teenage life can be explained and illuminated by the latest understanding of the changing teenage brain. The brains of our 16 year olds are wired to feel more self-conscious, to be more mentally creative, and to feel more intense emotion, than at any other time in their lives.
But it’s not just our children’s brains that are changing. Since they were born 16 years ago the very nature of family life and society has transformed. To find out how growing up in the modern, digital world is shaping them, the Child of Our Time teenagers gave us unfettered access to their phones. In our unique experiment we reveal what are 16 year olds are up to online, and what impact 24/7 media engagement has on their sleep, their stress levels, and their growing social skills.
Child of Our Time brings you the inside story of today’s 16 year olds. So say goodbye to the children we once knew, and welcome the fascinating young people they have become.
Genre
Science; Research; Biology

How to cite this record

The Open University, "Child of Our Time". https://learningonscreen.ac.uk/ou/search/index.php/prog/227248 (Accessed 10 Jan 2025)