Challenges in society

Being a citizen of a society there are the inevitable social challenges that come as part of the societal package.Though a list of the social challenges facing the United States today could go on for pages, I will only give a few of those that I find particularly interesting.

1) The lack of responsibility.
Responsibility is defined as the state or fact of having a duty to deal, or being accountable or to blame for something. This also includes the opportunity to act independently.
I particularly want to address my personal observation and opinion of parents in their lack of responsibility and thinking that their children can do no wrong. Your teenage backs your truck into another car in the parking lot and naturally, that Toyota doesn't know how to park because he's sticking out too far. Not your 16 year old's fault, right?

Consider this clever cartoon. How true is it? Even though I am a "ripe and aging" college student, I remember vividly the days of grade school and parent teacher conferences. Back in my day I had my shining moment of accountability to my parents as we discussed parent teacher conferences over dinner. "Your teacher says you talk too much." "She said you're slow to start on your classwork." "You're constant chattering is distracting to the other students." True. True. True. Whoops. Of course, none of that is my teacher's fault. She wasn't out to get me nor look for every opportune moment to mark me down.
I'm not at all saying that kids are let off the hook either. There seems to be a rising trend among teenagers and emerging adults. This terrifying trend is very little respect, if not an entire loss, for authority.
How many new, young college students today dismiss and even argue with professors concerning their grades, attendance, or performance. So my alarm didn't go off [I hit snooze twice] and booked it to class [I walked my normal pace] and came into class five minutes late [eight or ten minutes late] and my horrible, mean professor wouldn't let me make up the quiz [always given at the beginning of class] after his lecture. He's so unfair. I'm going to write him a terrible teacher review.
Seriously???

2) The matter of technology.
When I think about how far we've come with computers, internet, communication, music, and technology my head starts to hurt. Its incredible the advances we have made in technology. As benefactors of these we become caught up and so easily become blind to a social challenge that has subtly made its arrival. I feel its safe to say that the most common form of communication today is texting. Email and phone calls are still convenient ways for us to stay in contact with one another.

Maybe those around us really do deserve our attention and not just our presence. Our society's dependency obsession with our phones is creating communication barriers. We spend seconds, minutes, and some hours upon hours on our smartphones every single day. Are the people we love deserving of our time? Are the alerts and notifications of our technology so important and urgent that we are willing to isolate ourselves and sacrifice one-on-one interaction?

3) The lost virtue of patience.
Fast lane, fast food, fast cash, fast delivery. We want it all and we want it NOW. In today's society we feel deserving of having the things we want with the snap of our fingers. As a well-developed country we feel privileged and entitled. A challenge that continues to consume our society is our impatience and our constant demand for bigger, better, faster, stronger. We become annoyed when our web page takes more than five seconds to refresh and reload. Grocery stores offer fast checkouts and even car mechanics promise quick oil changes. Even the most minor amount of traffic flips our world upside down.

4) The obsession with sex.
Are we aware that there is a new film debuting from Hollywood this summer called "Sex Tape"? Any guesses on the plot line or the movie rating? It shouldn't be to hard to guess. And the surprising thing is that it's not the first of it's kind. Other blockbusters that have been released years before include "Friends With Benefits" and "Knocked Up", just to name a few. An advertised new t.v. series is called "Dating Naked". But this grotesque obsession doesn't end with just movies and television. It can be found in everywhere in music, books, and even our verbal communication.There are crude phrases like "party in my pants" that are too commonly used and are advertising sex as a sport. Jokes are made in the work place, among friends, and in nearly every possible public event.
What is making this a social challenge is that it has drastically exploded in the past few years and has gone from something terrible to something bad. Something bad to something dismissed . Something dismissed to something accepted. And something accepted to something embraced and advocated.

What's comforting is to see that there are still those who are "old school" and hold on to morals and values. In this sex crazed society, solid role models like the above (one of my favorite quotes from our beloved Hermione) give us the fresh breath of good, clean air that we so desperately need in this overflowing ocean of sensuality and sexuality.