Is "Adolescence" Artificial?

Psychology Today has up an interesting article by a psychologist who claims that adolescence is an artificial construct created by Western societies, and that we'd all be better off if we treated children as adults as soon as they are reproductively capable.

Imagine what it would feel like—or think back to what it felt like—when your body and mind are telling you you're an adult while the adults around you keep insisting you're a child. This infantilization makes many young people angry or depressed, with their distress carrying over into their families and contributing to our high divorce rate. It's hard to keep a marriage together when there is constant conflict with teens.

We have completely isolated young people from adults and created a peer culture. We stick them in school and keep them from working in any meaningful way, and if they do something wrong we put them in a pen with other "children." In most nonindustrialized societies, young people are integrated into adult society as soon as they are capable, and there is no sign of teen turmoil. Many cultures do not even have a term for adolescence. But we not only created this stage of life: We declared it inevitable. In 1904, American psychologist G. Stanley Hall said it was programmed by evolution. He was wrong.

I find his arguments new and different, but I have to say that in my experience the ability to reason of the average 14 year old is generally far below that of even unintelligent adults.