any article that includes "economists agree" you can pretty much expect the opposite is true.

Well for me adolescence was pretty OK. Had my fun, played games all day after school (which itself was alright too) and that continued well into my college and even few years after that. In college I had a blast, really the best years of my life from "careless freedom" point of view. Never ever will I live like that again, it is not sustainable in the long run, but it was really fun when I was under 25. I continued the lifestyle later, but the satisfaction with my life went rapidly down, because I wanted something deeper. Today, at 30, with wife and a child, I don't have so much fun as I used to, life is more stressful and busy, but at the end of the day it is more satisfying and I would not want it otherwise.