Humans tend to worry about immediate threats. Being robbed. Getting cancer. Losing their job, and in the case of teenagers, not getting into college. Our instinct for self-preservation is strongest in the case of our own living, breathing bodies and weakest when it comes to the human race as a whole. This is a necessary fact of life in the urban jungles of some of the world’s largest cities, and perhaps more so for the teenagers that call them home.

A poll conducted in October by Synovate for the BBC World Service surveyed 3050 teenagers in ten cities around the world: London, England; New York, USA; Nairobi, Kenya; Cairo, Egypt; Lagos, Nigeria; Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; Baghdad, Iraq; Delhi, India; Jakarta, Indonesia; and Moscow, Russia.

On a ‘personal level’ the teenagers polled indicated that the most important issue to them at the moment was Education (38%), followed distantly by Terrorism (19%). Career (17%) and Aids (14%) rounded out the double digit percentiles, while Hunger, Obesity and Climate Change (a miniscule 3% worried about this the most) were at the back of their minds.

If we run with the idea that teens are concerned mostly with themselves, its not unreasonable to consider their concerns and opinions to be a litmus test of the average adult’s visceral, instinctual reactions. Of course adults (or some of them anyway) attempt to push beyond their immediate reactions and think of someone other than themselves—their children for example, their country, or perhaps even the human race.

When the teenagers were asked what which issue was most important on a global scale, their answers were slightly different. Terrorism vaulted to the top of the pack with 36% (and a whopping 63% in New York, which has had one terrorist attack in the last decade as opposed to Baghdad, which suffers one nearly once a week and where 59% cited it as the most important issue). Education retained second place with 25%, Aids stayed in third with 17%, and Climate Change was still down at the bottom with 5%.

Flip back in your mind for a moment to Maslow’s Hierarchy of needs from middle school guidance class. Basic needs such as food and shelter, sleep, warmth and sex come first. Security from bodily harm, comfort and peace comes next, then social needs (belonging to a group and acceptance), then self-esteem, and at the tip top of the pyramid, intellectual stimulation and opportunities for creativity and innovation. It could be argued that climate change is the only truly global threat in the list the teenagers were given to choose from. Terrorism doesn’t touch every part of the world—though North American news might make one think it does. Aids is a health threat and therefore needs to be worried about—but at least there are ways to prevent yourself from contracting it, if your lucky enough to get your hands on one (too many are not). Education could be grouped with intellectual stimulation at the top of Maslow’s pyramid, but if one thinks about it as necessary for prosperity, and therefore health, security and safety, it makes sense. Yet there are places in the world where education is free.

Climate change is going to affect every single person on earth eventually—through the weather their country receives, resource shortages, the economic changes and challenges it will bring, and the erasure of entire cities (including New York). But these threats are not immediate enough. The possibility that a teenager in any one of these cities could contract HIV is immediate. Immediate is the question of how to become educated, find a job and feed (...read more...)