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Older people are more likely to interpret public behavior as anti-social than younger lot, a new study of interpretations of anti-social behavior (ASB) has found. 

Around 80 percent of adults believed swearing in a public place was ASB to which only 43 percent of young people agreed. 

Furthermore, 40 percent of the adults also thought young people hanging around as ASB, compared to 9 percent of teenagers. 

Researchers compared views of teenagers who were attending secondary school and adults residing in the same part of the Greater London.  

"It is notable - and worrying - that young people's presence in public places, regardless of their behavior, was considered to be an ASB by four in ten adults," said lead researcher Dr Susie Hulley, from Cambridge's Institute of Criminology, in a press release. 

"The information that adults have about young people, for example from their negative portrayal in the media, often defines them in terms of the threat that they allegedly pose to adults."

Hulley made a direct comparison between teenagers' perceptions about particular ASB with those of adults by asking them to answer the same questionnaire. 

"In the context of increasing distances between generations, between 'them' and 'us', efforts should be focused on improving social connectedness by bringing adults and young people together so that adults can get a better understanding of young people and their behavior," said Hulley.

"For example, previous research shows that young people gather in public places, which adults use, to feel safe and that adults often don't know the local young people, whose behaviour they are interpreting and who they perceive as a risk."

The research has been published online in the journal of Crime Prevention and Community Safety.