Category: Youth

It is often said that youth is often wasted on the young. How far do you agree?

Youth has its own natural attributes- energised physique makes everything seem easy and accessible, cognitive intelligence paves the path. Hence, innovative ideas develop and find implementation. The enhanced standards of education and introduction of science and technology adds to their efficiency making them charismatic workers. However, the other side of the coin presents a different picture. The youth is the embodiment of rigid, inflexible stubbornness. They lack in patience and experience. As such the rare gifts and natural talents are recklessly wasted. The abundance of glamour and pleasures make time slip away unnoticed. The counselling of the venerable class goes unheeded. It would be well to understand that the young generation is immature and cannot decide which path to adopt and which to abandon. The role of parents, teachers and society together with the standard of education are the deciding factors that make the young people to utilize fruitfully or to waste heedlessly the wealth of youth.

Young people, as opposed to the senior citizens, possess the potentials to bring about positive transformation in societies, to write success stories and to add to the aesthetic world by creative intervention, provided that their natural instincts and strengths are directed and channelized properly. Young people bring an end to age old conservative thoughts, dogmas and social evils.
The greatest barrier in social progress is ignorance and age old conservative thoughts. It is the young group that can help to eradicate these.

In many of the lesser developed societies, we still find gender-based bias, early marriages, dowry deaths, and child labour as highly prevalent. Despite attempts made by national and international organizations active in this direction, these enigmatic features continue to shame humanity. The young generation can do a lot to clean the society of such evils. They have the insight to comprehend the problem, the ability to find a solution and also the strength to have them implemented. There are many examples that show the revolutionary attitude of the millennials to wage a war against social evils. History has evidence of major changes brought through youthful initiatives and influences. As the young freedom fighters could achieve Independence for their country, today’s youth can free the societies of its foes in the shape of evils. The millennials extend support to social well- being through modern thoughts and innovative functioning

Young people today are successful entrepreneurs and social activists. They can not only revolutionize the digital scene but can also help fight against pollution, conserve natural resources and eradicate poverty. The trend of entrepreneurship initiated by Steve Jobs, Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg has paved the way for new generation of kids. Kevin Systrom and Mike Kreiger co-founders of the digital company, Instagram, are under 30; Shrawan Kumaran and Sanjay Kumaran, India’s young digital developers are only 12 and 14 years old and have co- founded Go Dimensions; Dylan Mahalingam, only at the age of nine in 2006, founded LilMDG’s , an organization in collaboration with the United Nations Millennium Development Goals; Madison Robinson, the fifteen year old entrepreneur from Texas, is making good profit in her clothing industry Fish Flop; and, Malala Yousafzai, the social activist fighting for education for all and the winner of Nobel Peace Prize in 2013, was only seventeen that time. These success stories suggest the triumph and intense utilization of youthful character, not its waste. Recent passion for technology has triggered a number of young people working in the direction of digital development and the sense of responsibility towards social issues is increasing day by day.

The young minds and hands possess creativity. A number of young people are showing their talents in the field of art, music, dance, drama, film making and sports, making this world a place of great grandeur. Talents in the field of art and literature are continued even as the folk arts are inherited and carried forward by the youth. Young fingers are engaged in creating masterpieces and instruments vibrate magic. Zachary David Zach Sobiech was an American rock singer who was suffering from cancer in 2012; instead of being disheartened by his eminent mortality he wrote songs and gave performances for his near and dear ones and his greatest hit, Clouds, became a You Tube sensation; his music, after his passing away, continues to motivate people to live their life to the fullest. Missy Franklin won Six Gold medals in 2012 Olympics but turned down her financial endorsement to continue her college education. Such talents are no doubt rare, but they, never the less belong to the young.

The role of performance arts, fine arts, folk arts, writings enriches the aesthetic wealth of the globe, adding a soulful satisfaction to human existence. Such young people who are conscious, conscientious and creative, constitute a smaller percentage of the entire mass. The majority of the young generation waste their time and talent in a callous search for momentary pleasures.

More often than not they do not listen to their guardian’s advice and do as they will. Having no respect for the time they let opportunities slip by. Nomophobia is the most widespread ailment of modern youth who cannot survive without their cell phones. Late night parties, friend circles, movies and careless gallivanting are symptoms of the rich while the less affluent take resort to cheap wines, drugs, abuse and violence. They fail to realize their more responsible roles in social development as imposed on them by the demographic transition and dependency ratio. According to the most recent demographic projections, which suggests an increase in the percentage of aged people and a decline in the percentage of the young, the youth will be under greater social and moral pressure of the greybeards. It is ironical that by the time a sense of realization will dawn upon them they will be too senescent for any useful activity. Most of the young population either misuse their potentials or remain idle, undisciplined and violent.

There is a tremendous burden on the young generation and the factors of insecurity and unemployment add to their adversities. Lack of proper guidance and the exposure to technology- social media and easy communication modes of cell phones- deviate them from their path. If they lack the vision to recognise their potentials and appear to be wasting their youth, it is not entirely their fault. Their performances need to be appreciated, their problems require to be sorted out and their trust has to be won by the elders and the societies promoting their participation. Today young people need to be empowered. If these conditions are met, the young will make the best use of their youth.

The young people are equipped with abilities to function wonderfully. They are doing so in various fields. But, there are a number of young people, moving towards senile ageing, without noticing the important fact that time was slipping away silently, like sand through the gaps between fingers.
Problems of unemployment, insecure future, family burden and immense exposure to dazzling distractions of modernity are preventing the young from realizing their goals and prompting the wastage of youth.

Young people today no longer appreciate the simple pleasures of life. Discuss.

The spread of modern technologies linked to the digital world has created a new type of environment for young people. Reality has become synonymous with virtual reality, and almost every action in the real world has its correspondent in the virtual one. It is easier than ever to become immersed in the digital media, and children are born and raised surrounded by these technologies and by parents who use these technologies.

            This scenario has created other types of desires and pleasures, the likes of which were not known to people in the past. Before the spread of modern technologies, young people were used to playing outdoors, engage in physical activities and reading books. There were no alternatives to spending their free time in a fun way. Today, almost all activities are done via a computer or mobile device, connected to the internet. Instead of playing football, young people download the latest FIFA video game and play it in multiplayer, with people they do not even know.

3D movies and video games do not stimulate young people’s imagination, the way in which playing outdoors, physical games with friends did in the past. These entertainment methods have slowly decreased the appetite for the simple pleasures in life, creating artificial desires and encouraging them for the simple purpose of mass consumerism. Every single toy nowadays has to be as shiny, interactive and costly as possible. Interactivity is a term that seems to gain more and more importance and value today. However, people forget that books and social games are also interactive entertainment activities – although they do require more imagination and role playing from their “users”.   

Capitalism has evolved greatly in the past decades, and has lead to a decadent lifestyle, in which pleasure can only be derived from and is equal to the amount of money that is spent for it. A simple piece of wood can be used creatively by children in their games, but today, parents and children alike seem to have forgotten that. It is more convenient to buy expensive toys and digital devices for a child than it is to read him a bedtime story. And it is also more convenient for a child to play a complex role playing video game such as World of Warcraft than it is to actually go outside and create his or hers own story and role play.

            This situation only seems to aggravate in time, as yesterday’s children, who did not have all of the immersive technologies, have raised their children with these technologies from a very young age. The mass media encourages this behavior too, and there seems to be a tacit consensus regarding the negative impact these technologies can have on young people. The old Roman saying, “Mens sana in corpora sano”, seems to have been forgotten. It is no wonder that more than two in 3 adults are considered to be overweight or obese, since they are immersed in the digital world from their youth.  

            If this situation is to be changed in the future, parents need to pay extra attention to the activities of their children. They need to teach their children how to enjoy the simple things in life, how to play in the physical world and how to use their own imagination. This does not mean that modern technologies are bad in themselves; they can be useful, but only if they are balanced with traditional games and methods of entertainment. There has to be a balance between the time a young person spends online and offline, between the time they spend in the digital world and the time they spend in the physical world.

Also, young people have to learn, as soon as possible, that money value is just another type of value, and not at all the only type of value that exists. There are also spiritual values that a person has to take into account, if they want to enjoy the true pleasures in live. The simple pleasures are not just cheaper in terms of the required capital, but also necessary.

There are hardly any worthwhile role models for young people nowadays. Discuss.

Written using an unconventional structure.

The idea that there are fewer positive role models in our contemporary society is based on a fallacy. There are actually more positive role models today than ever before, and it is very easy to get to know them through the new media. We live in an age where people from opposite sides of the planet can easily communicate and share information in real time, and thus greatly influence each other.

This means that young people do not have to limit their popular culture needs to the place where they live. There are thousands of other places that they can find about on the internet, and they can access the internet anywhere, anytime, even on mobile devices. However, the same technologies that can help them in this regard is also the main roadblock in their path to finding positive role models, because the new media mainly promotes negative models, since positive ones have a smaller public impact, while negative attitudes sell better.

This is the reason why many people consider that there are fewer role models for young people nowadays: because they only look at what is promoted on popular TV stations, magazines and websites. However, there are still a great number of publications that focus their attention on educational aspects, which follow a strict deontological ethic and do not care only about their budgets.

Also, individuals can search for role models on their own, without the help of large publications. Of course, parents can also guide their children and teach them where and how to find useful and positive information, without forcing them to learn about things they do not care, but encouraging them to find good models on their own.   

Magnus Carlsen, aged 24, is a child prodigy and the world’s chess champion. Unlike other chess prodigies in the past (Bobby Fischer being the best example), he is a very optimistic, cheerful and charismatic person. He lives a healthy life, engaging in various other sport activities. He always smiles and loves what he is doing. Carlsen is the living proof that people can succeed if they work hard, love what they are doing, remain focus and have a healthy lifestyle. It is now easier than ever to follow Carlsen’s work and his personal life, through most of the popular social networks such as Facebook and Twitter, and even on his Youtube channel.

Unlike in the past, there are no major media publications that mediate this relationship between Carlsen and his fans, which means that admirers can have direct and immediate access to Carlsen’s determination and words of wisdom. There are thousands of other positive role models who can be found in sports, music or films, although they are not as promoted as the negative ones are. Adolescents can easily reach them if they balance mainstream media with traditional and independent media sources. Just as always, it is just a matter of knowing where and how to search for good information and role models.  

             While it is true that the media has changed, and that this change brings about a bad influence to young people nowadays, it is also true that, with a little effort, young people can use the same media to their advantage. Although there are more negative than positive role models nowadays, there are still more than enough positive ones to choose from. The new media, the process of globalization and instant access to information worldwide makes it easier for adolescents to find people who have succeeded in domains that interest them. It also makes it easier for them to understand how and why these people have succeeded, and thus to learn from their successes. Most people are however blind to these immense opportunities and this blindness is a form of ignorance, the same ignorance that makes other people blame technology for their own failures. Violence, sexism and hate are a major theme of our contemporary world. It is however up to each and every one of us to choose our goals and ideals in life. Everyone will choose the thing that best fits their own character and desires. Neither schools nor parents can impose positive role models on young people. They can however guide adolescents and help them make the right decisions. This decision has to ultimately come natural to them.