Introduction
Youth is the main cell of modern society. Youth today is the most important intellectual, cultural and professional reserve of Russian society, the fate of Russia depends on the quality of life and development.
In the relevance of the topic at this period of time would not doubt even a meticulous critic. And there is a simple explanation. All people were once young, or are now. Young people are the future of Russia. At the moment young people make up almost 30% of the population of the planet, and it is they who in time will take the leading positions both in economics and politics, and in the social and spiritual spheres of society. Young people’s problems have always worried the society. And when modern old people were young, and when their parents were eighteen years old. Youth – the time when everyone must determine their own destiny, to find the only true, leading to success path of life, which will allow maximum realization of their abilities and talents. The topic of problems and prospects of young people will not leave anyone indifferent:
– young people because they are interested in it at the moment;
Middle-aged people, as they have recently been young, and most of them have children, who in the near future will be the very youth;
– People of older and senile age will be interested in this topic, as young people are the future – their grandchildren.
The future of the world depends on young people. And discussion of problems and perspectives of young people will be relevant always, at any time. Formation of young people is influenced by many factors: family, school, labor collective, mass media. Youth – the time when everyone must determine their own destiny, to find the right path in life, which will allow maximum realization of their abilities and talents. Teenagers most often do not have an idea of what they would like to do in life. Young people do not want to get an education just because they have no prospects after getting an education. Unemployment among the active and able-bodied population, who need to earn a living somehow, leads to an increase in crime, social stratification, and as a consequence, social tension.
Young people consider it unnecessary to think about the future. They are somewhat disconnected from reality and feed their faith in easy money and heavenly life. This is due to dependence on electronic gadgets and the Internet. Teenagers grow up on shows and movies about the beautiful life, thinking that this is reality.
Not getting the desired life, disappointed in their ideas about it, young people begin to “decorate” their everyday life with bad habits, from which it is very difficult to get rid of later – drugs, alcohol. There is a criminalization of young people, there are committed such crimes as theft, fraud, extortion of money.
Of course, this does not apply to all young people. Fortunately, a large proportion of young people invest considerable resources in self-study. However, the portion of young people who do not devote time to diverse development is still much larger. The importance of self-development is not so much an assessment of intellectual and other abilities as an opportunity to acquire the skills and knowledge to be more adaptable to the environment.
Young people are the country’s great labor and economic potential. They are promising, grasp on the fly information about new technologies and always strive to improve the quality of their own lives. Easily adapts to new conditions, the experience of past generations has almost no effect on them, due to its high dynamism and mobility. Modern society should understand and promote the development of young people – this is a bias towards education and science, and improving health through sports, physical culture and healthy lifestyles, parents and teachers should help in the formation of a stress-resistant personality, capable of independently and responsibly build their lives, develop a type of healthy behavior, and government policy should be aimed at ensuring effective education, decent education and successful socialization of the younger generation.
1. What is youth?
Youth is a special social and age group, distinguished by the age framework and its status in society; a generation of people undergoing the stage of growing up, i.e., personality formation, assimilation of knowledge, social values and norms, necessary to establish themselves as a full-fledged and full-fledged member of society.
Youth is commonly referred to as the period in a person’s life between the ages of 14 and 30, between childhood and adulthood.
If we consider youth in terms of leading activities, this period coincides with the end of education (learning activities) and entry into working life (work activities).
From the point of view of psychology, youth is a period of acquiring one’s own self, establishing a person as an individual, unique personality; a process of searching for one’s own special way of achieving success and happiness. As in any search, a young person is not immune to difficulties and mistakes: he or she does not yet have enough experience to make the right decisions in many difficult situations. However, it is the awareness of these mistakes that shapes his own life experience. “Young people are as apt to think themselves wise as drunk people are drunk,” said Chesterfield, and he is right. Young people are only gaining experience at this certain period of time; when experience appears, they can be called adults
From the general philosophical point of view youth can be considered as a time of possibilities, a time of striving for the future. From this point of view youth is a period of instability, change, criticism, constant search of novelty. The interests of young people lie on a different plane from the interests of older generations: young people, as a rule, do not want to obey traditions and customs, they want to transform the world, to assert their innovative values. Young people often try to stand out from the crowd around them with bright hair colors or tattoos.
Young people are characterized by internal physiological and psychological instability, by internal contradictions. This can explain the fact that they often can’t understand what they want or, for example, what choice to make, what would be the right thing to do. Young people often emphasize their independence by expressing it in their rude and ill-considered speeches, with their often inconsistent words and incorrect sentences. They do not always think about what to say first. Immediately respond quickly with an impolite response, thereby defending themselves from those around them, whose words may simply not have liked or been misunderstood by the teenager.
In the pursuit of modernity, many teenage girls, instead of striving for a happy future family life, but try to become attractive and sexy, which subsequently leads to depravity of nature. This also applies to boys who, looking at their idols, eventually realize that they will not be able to become like them. This leads to a loss of all values and disappointment in life. This is the substitution of their life values.
On this basis, we can say that young people are people of a certain age who are looking for their interests, communicate with the society around them, choose their future profession, try to realize themselves in one or another kind of art or activity. In this regard, it is very important that the person in this period of life did not go astray from the right path, did not become addicted to bad habits, learned to be sociable, chose the type of activity that would be most interesting to them to work in this field, becoming an adult, and most importantly, to love their work in the future.
2. Problems of today’s youth.
2.1.Addiction to electronic gadgets, including the Internet
Forums, social networks, entertainment portals… They are able to keep people in front of their computers and notebooks almost all day long. Sometimes it seems as if the guys and girls who “live” online are too lazy to go out into the real world. Virtuality is very convenient because you can say a lot, comment, discuss, and do not be afraid of the condemning stares. Sitting at home, you can communicate with people who are in any part of the world, to buy things that are not sold in stores of your city, learn the news that were not shown on TV, learn this or that information in detail and briefly in summary form, learn comments from people about everything you just might be interested, listen to music, read the lyrics. Yes, even learn any language, you only need a computer and the Internet, everything else can be found on the expanses of various networks and links.
Nevertheless, teenagers don’t get out of the house. They spend their time not on self-development, but on computer online games. Thus forgetting about the studies at school. As a result, as a rule, they get bad grades. This problem comes from misunderstanding in the family, in society. It is easier for them to lock themselves in their room, play or communicate with other people than to explain their point of view. On the other hand, trying to communicate their thoughts, no one wants to understand them, perhaps they don’t even try. Young people sit on the Internet, they avoid communicating with people in real life. Another problem arises – they stop communicating in life, they can correspond only through social networks, thereby reducing their communication skills, they can no longer start a conversation with a stranger, meet someone in the street, ask the time from a passerby. They are more comfortable sitting on the Internet, writing to “friends” they have never seen and may never see.
Lack of experience with people when they are young greatly affects adulthood. Constant acquaintance with strangers at work, shopping, selling one’s belongings is also associated with the need for face-to-face dialogue. More and more people are moving from real life to virtual space. And it really prevents them from building a real life, for which, in fact, there is no time left.
Sociopathy and psychopathy develop. Some young people literally can’t string two words together.
An alternative to the functions of social networks and gadgets:
– Use the real world to communicate;
– look for friends in reality. The virtual world gives only the illusion of belonging to a group and does not develop any real social skills;
– Fill your life with positive events and actions;
– have their own clear views and beliefs;
– to avoid falsehood and anonymity in a virtual reality
– learn to control your own time and time at the computer.
– find a favorite activity, hobby, hobby in real life.
– take more walks, spend time in the fresh air, go in for sports.
– Listen to your parents’ advice if they tell you that you spend too much time at the computer.
2.2 Lack of desire for self-development
Of course, this does not apply to all young people. Fortunately, a significant percentage of young people invest a lot of resources in self-study. However, the portion of young people who do not devote time to diverse development is still much larger. The importance of self-development is not so much in the assessment of intellectual and other abilities as in the opportunity to acquire the skills and knowledge to be more adaptable to the environment. Let me give a simple example: if in Russia more than 95% of the population were trained in financial, legal, computer literacy, traffic rules and rendering first aid to a victim, the level of corruption, fraud, divorce and accidents would start to fall steadily, and the general standard of living would rise.
There is only one solution to this problem – the desire and motivation to increase our own adaptation to the environment, to become more adaptable.
Many people think that education is not, education on a par with proper upbringing, makes a child more socially adapted, opens up new opportunities for social interaction. It is at school that a child receives basic knowledge regarding the reality around him. Measures should be taken in educational institutions to increase the interest of students in the learning process. Great attention should be paid to the introduction of more practical activities that would allow a better assimilation of the acquired knowledge, as well as an appreciation of the usefulness and application in real life of the information received.
Many people are unwilling to think for themselves, giving in easily to other people’s manipulations. Only a couple of ambiguous arguments manages to convince a person of something. And, to a greater extent it concerns young people, as older people often have more or less formed an opinion on various issues. What does this lead to in the aftermath? To the mass of the population, which now prevails in Russia – people who, instead of using rational thought, resort to stereotypes that have nothing to do with reality. It is necessary to analyze all incoming information and everything that you are told. Especially if you feel you are being tried to convince yourself of serious things related to politics/sociology, etc. Don’t make it easy on your brain, make it think and evolve.
In addition, there is the phenomenon of the stratification of young people into two different types, the mechanism of which is not yet fully understood. The first type is social infantilism, in which adolescents remain adolescents much longer than it is necessary (after twenty and older), while the second type is diametrically opposed to the first – early social maturation, in which adolescents are oriented more to another culture, to the West, where young people begin to support themselves quite early. Social policy should focus on these two types and try to understand their nature. The problem with our state, however, is that it pays little attention to children, teenagers and young people. The impression is that the government doesn’t really need them.
2.3 Alcohol, Drugs and Tobacco
Alcoholism can be called a social problem of youth, because no one is safe from it. It is a hereditary predisposition as well as an acquired one through addiction. A teenager who starts drinking alcohol early loses the sense in life. Subsequently, his stimulus becomes drinking. Today, alcoholism is the most pressing problem of young people, regardless of gender. A teenager in the stage of alcohol intoxication becomes unbalanced, compulsive, rude. Hence another problem of young people comes out, and that is crime. After all, such people are knee-deep in the sea, and they can go to all the trouble. Most of all crimes committed by adolescents, it is in the stage of alcoholic intoxication. To avoid adolescent alcoholism and to raise a full member of society, it is necessary to monitor their children and time to protect them from bad companies where the practice of drinking alcohol. Most teens and young adults believe that weak alcohol is just an inexpensive and perfectly safe way to relax. At the same time, many who occasionally put their hands on a bottle of heady liquid look with contempt at alcoholics. It seems to them that they do not drink vodka but practically “lemonade”. They drink it not in order to “forget” about it, but only to improve their mood. The attitude of our youth toward low alcohol beverages as toward lemonade is very dangerous! Beer alcoholism develops more slowly and not as noticeably as alcoholism from hard alcoholic beverages. The problem of alcoholism among adolescents is very pressing these days. More and more adolescents drink alcoholic beverages at least once a week, and sometimes even more often. Alcohol is firmly entrenched among young people. For young people, alcohol is a means to loosen up and overcome the shyness that many teenagers suffer from.
Alcohol is a drug that not only has enormous destructive power, but also has the property of developing an addiction to it. And the earlier will be drank the first shot of wine, the earlier and more severe will be its consequences. For a boy or a girl of 14-16 years a shot of dry wine is no less destructive than for an adult a bottle of vodka.
Alcoholism is a big problem for today’s youth, especially in the villages. Cheap alcohol is becoming more accessible and tasty because of the addition of food aramatizers. Also, accessibility is due to weak state legislative work in this area.
Various alcoholic beverages are produced with gross violations of technology and from raw materials of poor quality. Which makes them more harmful, especially for young people.
In recent years there are more and more sports-oriented young people, and healthy lifestyle and proper nutrition are becoming fashionable. The whole society should strive to develop this fashion.
Drug addiction is a serious mental illness that occurs with the systematic use of drugs.
The state of drug intoxication resembles alcohol intoxication, but without the characteristic smell of alcohol breath. A common feature of this intoxication is euphoria, i.e. an elevated mood, serene bliss, combined with a slowdown or acceleration of thinking. Sexual excitement often occurs, but this mood is unstable and can suddenly change into discontent. Numerous studies of drug addicts and surveys of various categories of people, especially young people, show that there are many factors and reasons which lead people to take drugs.
10-12 years old. Young people of this age rarely use drugs. Smoking tobacco is enough for them. This already raises their rating among their classmates at school and in the yard. Forming groups to use cheap toxic substances (gasoline, solvents, glue) is typical at this age.
13-14 years old. They are interested in the possible use of so-called “light” drugs. Adolescents in this group have already tried some types of stimulants occasionally out of curiosity. Information comes from each other. The notion of drug addiction as a serious disease is absent. They believe that drugs are not dangerous. They do not see the threat of physical, mental addiction. Believe that they will be able to stop using drugs at any time.
15-17 years old. Young people of this age know much more about drugs than teenagers in the previous group. Quite often their theoretical knowledge is also supported by their own experience. At this age new forms of communication, recreation and love emerge. In relation to drugs, young people of this age can be divided into supporters, opponents and hesitators.
The modern society needs to deal more thoroughly with this problem. To form a correct understanding of the problems and dangers of drug addiction for all age groups and especially for young people.
Smoking is one of the most pernicious habits, which is a social problem for both its smoking and non-smoking part of the society. For the first part, the problem is to quit smoking, for the second – to avoid the influence of the smoking society and not to “catch” their habit, as well as – to protect their health from the products of smoking. Some young people feel nauseous, dizzy, unpleasant taste sensations when smoking, nevertheless, desire of imitation, fashion trends, incitement of peers contribute to the spread of tobacco smoking.
The concern of scientists and doctors, caused by the spread of this addiction, is growing, because so far a significant number of people do not consider smoking to be harmful for health. Smoking is not a harmless activity, which can be given up without effort, it is a real addiction, and the more dangerous because many people do not take it seriously and do not see the problem.
Tobacco smoke contains more than 30 poisonous substances, the most important of which is nicotine. Nicotine is one of the most dangerous plant poisons, an alkaloid, a drug. Birds (sparrows, pigeons) die if a glass stick dipped in nicotine is placed in their beak. A rabbit is killed by 1/4 drop of nicotine, a dog by 1/2 drop.
For humans, the lethal dose of nicotine is 50 to 100 mg, or 2 to 3 drops. This is the dose that enters the blood after smoking 20-25 cigarettes (one cigarette contains about 6-8 mg of nicotine, of which 3-4 mg enters the blood), and for some smokers it is a daily dose. Still, the smoker does not die because the dose received is administered gradually rather than in one sitting. Nicotine is an extremely strong poison, acting mainly on the nervous system, digestion as well as the respiratory and cardiovascular systems. At its influence at first there follows an increased irritability and excitability of the most various systems and organs, and then this condition is replaced by oppression.
2.4 Delinquency
On rare occasions, a teenager is desperate to commit a crime if he is sensible and therefore does not use alcohol or drugs. Crime is a problem of young people in Russia, but it is something that draws our attention. Crimes are also committed because of the unbalanced psyche of teenagers or as a result of undivided love. To prevent your child from joining the list of troubled youth in today’s world and becoming a criminal or suicidal, communicate more with him or her. Tell them by example that a passing booty call can land them in jail, where the best years of their lives will be spent. Pay attention to the emotional state of the teenager, if necessary, bring him out of depression.
Juveniles today are the most criminally affected group of the population. Crime among minors creates preconditions for the growth in the arithmetic progression of general crime. Crimes against property (theft, fraud, robbery, burglary, transport theft) predominate (up to 85%) among criminal acts of minors. Approximately 10-12% are crimes against public safety and public health (hooliganism, causing grievous bodily harm). Prevalence of these types of crimes reflects, on the one hand, the increased financial and property stratification of society, on the other hand, the growth of social intolerance and aggressiveness. In the modern world, the criminal activity of adolescents is increasing regardless of the material well-being of the population. Experts and scientists, conducting a comparative analysis of the impact on the state of juvenile delinquency of the economic situation, the nature of media work, the effectiveness of law enforcement agencies, the level of social stability in different countries showed that their influence is present, but does not have the dominant importance. The increasing juvenile delinquency is a consequence of global social outsiderism, when young people and children find themselves outside the existing society. This occurs as a result of defective socialization, which has become spontaneous and uncontrollable. Russian society, moving to a qualitatively new state, loses the system of social control over the process of the formation of the younger generation, many traditional institutions of socialization, such as family, school, children’s and youth organizations, are losing their importance, and to replace them, except street and backstreet institution, nothing came. The situation is exacerbated by the stratification of society according to income prestigious goods for adolescents become unavailable to many. But they need to assert themselves, to be no worse than others. Self-assertion is an incentive for juvenile delinquency. The general situation in juvenile education has been worsened by the expansion of vocational training for minors, which has led to the mass, sometimes forced transfer of teenagers, most of them difficult teens, from the sphere of general education to vocational school at the most critical age.
Youth crime is not only a consequence of poverty and poverty, but also a form of protest by young people, their undeclared spontaneous war with society.
Crime among young people is also a consequence of non-response from the public and law enforcement agencies to their delinquent behavior. It should also be noted that the criminalization of young people occurs against the background of such negative and potentially dangerous as the spread of drug addiction and substance abuse, which are becoming epidemic in nature.
In the current conditions of life, poverty, temptations everywhere and everywhere it is not so easy for a young person in the period of growing up to set priorities and choose a way of imitation or direction.
The role of society in this matter is no less important. Members of society must correctly assess and respond to the behavior of young people with the beginnings of crime.
2.5 Intergenerational Conflict
One of the main problems of young people is their lack of understanding by adults. Through this there are many conflicts with parents and problems. Often teenagers leave home, and sometimes even decide to end their lives. To solve this problem of today’s youth, parents need to work on themselves. Remember yourself as a child, register on social networks, read a lot of information on the subject. If you stand your ground, there will be no application and understanding.
Generational conflict is the emergence of disagreements between people of different ages. The most striking examples can be situations of communication between children and parents, grandparents.
There are many reasons that provoke such conflicts, but of all we can highlight the most common. They include different views on the following things: the peculiarities of world outlook (attitude towards education, career, family, positive and negative traits of people, the role of modernity, etc.), parenting, recreation, comfort zone (clothing, appliances, food, etc.), health, finances and much more.
It is impossible to give a definite answer to the question of how generational conflicts manifest themselves. Many factors play a major role: from the degree of importance, the essence of what is discussed to the peculiarities of the nervous system of interlocutors. But perhaps the biggest role is played by where they occur.
In the family, such conflicts occur most often. Sometimes even every day. But they all have a different scale.
In society, they include all those conflicts that occurred outside the family: with neighbors, in the store, at the clinic, etc. Very often they occur because of some human factors: the one who argues or starts a quarrel has not slept / nervous before / sick, etc., so he is not able to control himself so as not to break down on a stranger. However, some individuals purposely provoke quarrels because they want to “lose it” on a stranger so that they don’t do it when confronted by a loved one or family member. For many people, the most significant issue is probably not what the disagreement is about, but how to exhaust it. Here three of the most adequate ways can be identified:
Arguing your position. To prove that you are right, it is not enough just to stand your ground. You can try to convince the interlocutor that what is being said is not just an opinion, but an opinion based on something: experience, an excerpt from a reliable source, an example, etc. But it is also important to listen to the interlocutor who holds a different point of view. In some situations, both opinions are correct, so when the circumstances are clarified, the conflict between the older and the younger generation can be quickly resolved.
Compromise. Especially easily reached by restrained people who are able to listen and analyze. Practice proves that in situations where there are two different opinions, you can find the “golden mean”, the essence and outcome of which satisfies both parties. A compromise sometimes lies in the fact that the opponents first follow one opinion and then the other. It is possible that one of them will be convinced of the usefulness, common sense, and expediency of the decision of the one whose point of view was not accepted at first.
Concession. If one of the parties wants to end the conflict, it is better to simply give up on winning. The fact is that, when entering into a debate, different generations can argue for a long time about who is right and what the outcome will be. This can also lead to all sorts of consequences, which often negatively affect the relationship between these people.
3. What is the perspective of young people?
Young people are very communicative and mobile. In fact, it is not difficult for teenagers to make a new acquaintance or meet a stranger. Once he comes into a new community, it will be easy for him to make new acquaintances. It is easy for a teenager to change his place of study, work, residence, he quickly gets used to the new environment, to new surroundings
The emergence of a fashion for a healthy lifestyle has had a good effect on the younger generation. Lack of desire to eat junk food, doing sports, negative attitude towards unhealthy habits all have a good effect on the health of teenagers. They do sports, they like it, they strive for good results, namely, for good physical shape, and most importantly, they achieve this goal. People who support a healthy lifestyle are sick less often, do not have depressions, insomnia, are always positive, calm, often smile and enjoy life.
Reading books is also fashionable in the 21st century. Teenagers began to read in large quantities, discussing works, interested in biographies of writers. They read, learn, tell their beloved poems of Russian poets. After reading a book, they go in search of similar narratives or are interested in other works by the same author. A good trait of the younger generation is a passion for books, a desire for self-development, spending time on useful activities that develop their thinking, memory, and eloquence.
It is mostly the younger generation that develops and thrives on a good imagination. It is teenagers who get ideas for writing books, and if that is what interests them most, they become excellent writers and poets in the future. The desire to draw comes at an early age, but it is at a young age that one learns to draw. Some young people are able to draw gorgeous pictures that do not satisfy them, they themselves criticize themselves, they try more and more, they learn throughout life, surprising others with their abilities, their gift. It is teenagers who are interested in musicianship, it is when they are young that they learn to sing or play musical instruments in art schools, they learn to hear the purity of melodies and the tonality of sounds. By practicing music for many years, associating their profession with music, they become excellent musicians, and often write their own tunes.
In today’s world of high technology, the Internet, and general access to all (almost all) information on the planet, the prospects for people in general, and especially young people, are enormous, if not limitless. Today’s young people have many tools for the way to achieve their goals. It is not the limited access to all information that there is only one limitation: time. And younger people have more of it. In an era of acceleration and rapid development, you just need to have time to find and learn information. And then properly apply it.
Conclusion
Having considered the perspectives and problems of the younger generation, we can conclude that teenagers are highly susceptible to all the criticism against them, serene, they are difficult in many moments of life: communication with people, studies, choice of profession, work, choosing a life partner and creating a family. All of these difficult issues have to solve the teenager is in the period of youth. The slightest mistake can change their adult life. People struggle with bad habits in adulthood when they acquired them in their youth. People suffer from a lack of communication in adulthood when they themselves, avoided, society, wanted to be alone when they were young. People suffer from a lack of experience in certain sports or arts, when they themselves flatly refused to engage in them when they were young. They are in a great quarrel with people important to them, when they themselves quarrelled with each other because of the slightest misunderstanding. Up to the last can not create a family, as can not meet on the street with the person they liked because of embarrassment, thoughts of what he would think of him. They suffer from bad eyesight, lost at such an early age due to watching unnecessary movies and communicating in social networks, forums, Internet pages with people whom they have never seen or even communicated with for a long time.
All problems come from the smallest mistakes of youth. It is so important to maintain your mental, physical health, not to follow the call of fashion, have your own opinion, think about the future now, look sensibly at your problems and try to solve them, not to fall head over heels for their appearance, live in reality, not in the Internet, communicate with people, follow a healthy lifestyle and self-development in different areas of creativity and sports.
