Being Fifteen

Melanie Mühl

For God’s sake, just look at them! Constantly checking their mobiles, having sex instead of hanging out with their friends. All they care about is themselves and their computer games, makeup, and shopping. They live in cyberspace, obsessing about their online lives. But how much truth is there in these prejudices? Do today’s teens really tick that differently than the rest of the world did when it was fifteen?

Melanie Mühl spoke to teenagers of both genders. They talked about their lives at length, in detail, and with astonishing candour. They talk about love, flash mobs, and cyberbul-lying; about friendship, body images, intimate shaving, and the best Instagram poses. But just how hard is it for teenagers to grow up in a society of optimisation – a perfectly photo-shopped world? What do adolescents dream of? And what are they actually doing with those cell phones all the time? One thing’s for sure – we need to put a good many of our prejudices on hold. Because even though they may seem to come from another planet, these kids have pretty clear-cut ideas of what makes for a good life – ideas which, like the kids themselves, aren’t all bad.