Wednesday, February 11, 2009
The Lazy Generation
The underlying problem with our generation is not the internet. Our problem is the M.O. that the easiest way is the best way. We have been spoiled to a point where we truly believe that not only are we the most important people on earth, but we deserve to get whatever we want... whenever we want it. In school, cheating is assumed. The weirdos are the kids who are unwilling to make cheat sheets and refuse to let others copy off of their tests. Outside of school, work is also a no-no. According to familyeducation.com, the average young person watches 5 hours of TV per day, 7 days a week. Where do we expect these children's lives to go? If unrestrained, an alarming number of teenagers will spend literally every free moment either staring at some sort of electronic screen or sleeping. One of my teammates is literally a social outcast because he is so desperate to play video games. His grades are horrible and very few people know him well at all. When we were in the dorms over Christmas break, he would spend as many as 10 hours per day on his Xbox. According to a huffingtonpost.com survey, 97% of children play video games. It's amazing that they can squeeze in those games while still watching their 5 daily hours of TV. What alarms me the most about the pervasiveness of cheating is the reason behind it. These kids are not buying term papers off the internet because they are incapable of doing the work. The motivation is pure laziness. How can I get by while doing the least possible work? This is the dominant mindset of children today, and unless something is done, the future of our nation will be in jeopardy.
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I wonder who's to blame. Is Skinner right? Is the society that deciding factor? Is America to blame? Or is it the parents? I'm starting to think it's a bit of both. Society presents all of these ways to escape from reality and parents don't do anything to keep their kids from falling face first into the X-Box Abyss.
ReplyDeleteParents don't care enough to interact with their children, so they buy them a Play Station at the age of 6. Then, when they're sixteen, after ten years of daily submersing themselves in escapism, they're only spend more time doing so.
I think parents should ultimately play a more responsible role in the entertainment of their children.
I think you're close Eric but a little to cynical to see the real problem - though a little cynicism is good. I think the real problem is the number of divorced parents with more than one child.
ReplyDeleteAccording to enrichment journal on the divorce rate in America:
The divorce rate in America for first marriage is 41%
The divorce rate in America for second marriage is 60%
The divorce rate in America for third marriage is 73%
(www.divorcerate.org)
After the third marriage you've gotta expect at least a couple of kids which means single mom or dad working one, two or even three jobs trying to pay to feed their kids and rent and utilities and entertainment, etc. I blame all the young kids getting married so early or gettin' knocked up in high school. If we could lower the divorce rate or at least somehow keeps these kids from becoming pregnant things might get better. However I'm seeing a cycle here. Parents divorce, consequently work more, consequently spend less time with kids, consequently kids become more wild, consequently kids get pregnant, consequently new baby isn't raised as well, repeat cycle.
Sad, isn't it?
I think its not necessarily that American parents are bad at parenting, they just need to re-focus. Attending a private university has opened my eyes to see how privileged people can be. Their parents give them gas station credit cards, grocery store credit cards, and another credit card to buy whatever else they might need. Sound familiar? I am here on a academic scholarship because I kept up a 4.3 during high school. While maintaining this GPA, I worked for 3 years at 2 jobs. During those years, I paid for a lot of things. At college, I pay for everything. I even had to buy my own laptop. Both of my parents worked full-time. Thus, less time spent with their kids isn't the root of the problem. Its what you do with that time. Don't spoil your kids, even if you can afford to. Teach them responsibility and then they might be less likely to get sucked up in television or in to cheating.
ReplyDeleteP.S. We can't blame the kids who get "knocked up" in high school either. I have seen some young moms that were way better mothers than older, financially stable, married woman. The problem is lack of the right moral lessons and healthy involvement.
This post rings true to me in many ways. I used to be one of the types of people that tried to go through life by doing as little as possible, and that only really changed when I came to Lipscomb. However, I did have a lot of help in doing this. Throughout my high school career, I rarely had homework despite taking honors and AP courses; I never once studied for any tests, and I almost always wrote my few papers the night before they were do. These habits never had a negative effect on me however, because I got all A's and B's on my report card, and graduated in the top 20 of my class with a 3.8 GPA. The problem is not just that kids are spending all of their time playing games and watching TV, but they have very little that actually requires them to step away from those things.
ReplyDelete