Today’s youth have become increasingly apathetic towards institutions of learning. As a senior in high school, I have a front row seat to the declining spirits of the incoming classes. It is harder for the teachers to motivate their students to participate in class and do their homework. The old reason for doing your homework used to be to prepare for college and life after high school, but frankly, that reasoning is becoming obsolete.
Students don’t seem to look to the future. They believe college is too far off for them to worry about and they can slack off. This existential trend is causing many students to sit idle and to not take charge of their lives. They are purposely neglecting opportunities to improve their education with accelerated classes so they can hang out with their friends more or because it may involve more work.
I believe improvements in technology are causing this trend. There are too many opportunities for them to log out of life and into some game or other virtual distraction. Formal communication between people has degraded so much by cell phones you can’t speak to someone for five minutes without them needing to check their phones. Cell phone companies are cursing this social decline even more by forcing people to buy smart phones. The only decent phones available require a data plan. Today’s culture has hyped up being online so much that it’s now a serious addition for many people. Who cares what a teacher has to say when a friend just sent a funny picture? Who can resist watching a video of a screaming goat instead of listening to their teacher?
Many say technology is improving schools by giving students the “world at their fingertips.” Information can be easily accessed, so what is the point of learning anymore when the world wide web knows it all? Personally, I believe if technology continues down this path it will be the death of the education system.
Michael Sekerak is a senior at NUHS. He lives in Nevada City.