- It seems like our culture is obsessed with popularity. Almost every teen movie from at least the 1980s features some type of popular group. And today, it can feel like there's even more of a fixation on being well-liked than ever before. Wait, I only got 47 likes on my last Instagram post? But like, I had just got my hair cut. I thought I looked good. So now I'm wondering, how does being popular in high school affect your life you graduate? To answer this question, it's important to define popularity because there's more than one type. There's status and there's likability. Status is what you probably think of when you play montages of teen movies in your head. - Tattoos are strictly verboten. Sorry! - Oh wait, that was just me? But for real, it's those stereotypes we always see in the media. Like the student body president, the head cheerleader, or the partiers, you know, the people who everyone knows about. They're the ones with a lot of power and influence. The other type of popularity is likability, which is basically how well-liked you are. And according to psychologists, this is how popularity is defined when we are children. In elementary school, the most popular kids tend to be the kind ones, you know, the first ones to share their toys or help their friends when they fall down. But something changes when people hit adolescence. All of the sudden, status tends to become more important. This has to do with how our brains change when those oh-so-wonderful puberty hormones kick in. Young teens start to seek out social power and influence, often engaging in relational aggression. Things like gossiping, cyber bullying, and excluding others in order to seem cooler. When teens achieve status by behaving this way, their brains reward them, telling them that they've succeeded. But studies have found that people who were popular in high school actually have a more difficult time with romantic, professional and social relationships when they become adults. This might make sense when you think about a movie like Mean Girls. Having status doesn't necessarily mean you're more well-liked; just that people are scared of you. - Do you know what everyone says about you? They say that you're a homeschooled jungle freak who's a less-hot version of me. Yeah! - And there's more, it's not just relationships that can suffer because of popularity. Popular kids also are more likely to face issues with depression, addiction, and have run-ins with the law, even just a few years out of high school. For example, in one study, a group of psychologists followed 184 teens from ages 13 to 23, checking in with them periodically over those 10 years. That's called a longitudinal study by the way. And they found that teens who engage in pseudo-mature, or adult-like behaviors like drinking alcohol or having sex, were in fact much more likely to have problems with depression and addiction by the time they were in their 20s. Why is this? Well, it could have something to do with continuity theory, which is the idea that adults continue the same behavior they did as kids. It's thought that teens engage in risky behavior to seem cooler to their friends, so as they get older, they might have to do more extreme things to impress their friends. For example, someone who was a drinker in high school to seem cool might feel the need to drink a lot more to continue to seem cool in college. So if you're not in the cool crowd, you might be feeling pretty good about yourself right now. But if you don't have any friends, well, that doesn't bode well for later in life either. A recent study shows that the other type of popularity, likability, is an important indicator for success in your 20s. This time, a group of psychologists set up another longitudinal study and followed 169 people from when they were 15 to when they were 25. They found that teens who prioritize strong, close friendships over status, were more likely to have higher self-worth and less likely to show signs of depression or anxiety. Other studies have found that people who are likable early in life tend to make more money and be happy in their careers. The researchers think that this is because being able to maintain close and strong friendships early also allow you to so throughout your life. But keep in mind, there are some limitations to this study. First of all, the sample size is fairly small, and it proves correlation: two things happen to be going on at the same time, not causation: we can prove one thing definitely causes another. So while psychologists have their best theories and guesses about why having strong friendships in high school make you happier in your 20s, they can't exactly prove why this is the case. So why do you think having a few close friends versus having a lot of influence in high school matters? Does this change the way you might approach your friendships? Let us know in the comments below, and don't forget to like and subscribe, guys. 'Til next time, bye. Oh wait, wait, wait, wait. Speaking of popularity, you know, you should tell your friends to tell their friends to watch these Above the Noise videos. We have another video on procrastination and school start time that will be awesome if you guys check it out. You know what I'm saying? We're trying to be, like, the homecoming kings and queens of YouTube here. And it would help us if you guys watched our videos, like our videos, subscribe to our videos, and told your friends to tell their friends to tell their friends, who then tell their friends, to also watch and like and subscribe to our videos. But that's all I got for you today. So 'til next time guys, thanks. Bye!