Being asked to clean their room is more annoying for teenagers than performing poorly on a school test, research shows

For teenagers, there are few things worse than being asked to clean their room.

A study has identified the top issues in life that are guaranteed to irritate and sulk teenagers.

This includes the fact that the WiFi connection is disconnected when they try to do something online, and they are expected to have an answer to the question of what they want to do with their lives.

But the top five annoyances teens mention include having to clean their room, even though they claim they were “about” to do so.

According to young people aged 16 to 18, being asked by a parent to clean the room when they had already planned to do so is even more annoying than performing poorly on a school test due to stress.

The request to clean up the room was also experienced as annoying, even more so than failing a test at school

What really turns teenagers on has been determined by researchers who consulted almost 150 young people.

First, 25 teens came up with a list of 51 annoying scenarios, which were grouped into topics and rated for irritation level by 122 other teens.

The 18 biggest irritations at the end of this process also included a parent asking a teen to do the dishes “for the third time” even though they had already promised to do so.

The list of irritations was used to elicit annoyance from 29 people aged 16 to 18 who were scanned in an MRI machine.

This was done to better understand the brain activity of teenagers dealing with irritation, as those most affected may be at greater risk of depression (SUBS – please stay high).

Dr. Niamh MacSweeney, who led the research at the University of Edinburgh, said (SUBS – save this quote): 'This study provides an interesting insight into the major irritations in teenagers.

“We saw classic themes, such as teens being asked to clean their rooms even though they said they were about to do so, and teens' aversion to feeling disrespected, patronized and talked down to by adults.”

Senior author Dr Liana Romaniuk, also from the University of Edinburgh, added: 'Previous studies suggest that teenagers are more prone to irritability, and it takes a while to learn to control their emotions when they feel irritated, and our brain scans show how they can process irritation differently than older people.

“Parents may want to try to be patient and see things from their teens' perspective.”

The study, published in Wellcome Open Research, identified the biggest irritation for teenagers when they had a conversation where they tried to give helpful advice, but the other person didn't listen and talked over them.

They also didn't like not being taken seriously by their parents.

As a warning to older relatives who often ask young people what they want to be when they grow up, the list of top 18 irritations also includes: “Everyone expects you to know what you want to do in life, even if you're still a teenager.” '

The irritations, in text form, flashed on a screen while 29 young people aged 16 to 18 sat in an MRI machine (SUBS – please save as this was the main point of the study).

Researchers wanted to understand how teenagers' brains respond to irritation, and thought that real-life grievances would work better than the difficult math problems sometimes given in similar studies to provoke annoyance.

The study found that irritation in teenagers had a particular effect on the cingulate cortex.

This part of the front of the brain, in the prefrontal cortex, is important for emotional regulation.

Teens who were especially prone to irritability didn't see many signals between the cingulate cortex and adjacent brain areas, which may help them deal with irritation.

That could mean they become more aroused by everyday irritants, making them less able to keep their cool, although more research is needed to determine if that's the case.

The teens recruited for the study all reported experiencing anxiety or struggling with low mood, which can worsen irritation.

While some irritability is normal during adolescence, the researchers emphasize that frequent and strong irritability in teens can also be a warning sign that they are at risk of depression (SUBS – please stay).

The study's authors are calling on more teenagers to get involved in similar research, through projects such as Generation Scotland, which is working with the University of Edinburgh to study young people's mental health (SUBS – should keep this sentence).