I do appreciate all your comments and viewpoints, and totally ‘get’ where you are all coming from, that being a teenager can be an awkward, shy, uncomfortable time.
Having said that, and not wanting to harp on about years ago, but I started work at 16 in a local bank, and left the safe environment of school for the adult world, where you were expected to communicate with customers and (often) older colleagues in a professional, courteous, grown up manner.
So when we are saying that they grow out of this shyness etc. when they are possibly no longer teenagers, some of us had to do it a bit sooner maybe, back then.
But as I said in my OP, times have changed,
BBC Radio 4Extra Scheduling Shake-Up.