Teenagers Lack in Meaningful Memories

The idea of teenagers physically meeting with each other and simply spending time with one another in real life seems like an obvious activity; however, this once seemingly innocent activity rarely happens anymore.

This generation of high school students has lost interest in socializing unless it’s via the cellphone. Social media is not a true genuine form of socializing and connecting with people. Students are becoming more lazy when it comes to socializing.

Research done by the Pew Research Center found that teens are sleeping more and doing homework more which is resulting in a decline in socializing and working to earn money. According to the research, teenagers on average have five hours and 44 minutes of leisure time. Just over three hours of this time is spent looking at screens instead of being with friends, family or work.

Common Sense Media has found that teenagers spend an average time of nine hours online per day.

Jean Twenge Professor of psychology has found that today's teens have the least amount of face to face interactions than ever before, and her research discovered that this is the loneliest generation in history.

“We found that although the amount of time teens spend with their friends face to face has declined since the 1970s, the drop accelerated after 2010, just as smartphone use started to grow,” Twenge said.

When teens are lonely they don’t make memories. It’s as simple as that. If nothing is happening in students’ lives, and they aren’t interacting with other people their teenage years will become a big blur of loneliness and boredom.

It doesn’t matter who the student is. Anyone is capable of communication with another human being. Anyone is capable of creating connections with others, no matter what type of person they are.

Who would end their high school years with little to no fun memories; it’s amazing that there are weekends when some students don’t do a single social thing, not even hanging out with people to just simply do something.

Meeting up and chugging down Monster Energy drinks until 2 a.m. playing the Xbox isn’t going to bring students meaningful memories. Students spending their Saturday nights sitting at home snapchatting pictures of their foreheads will one day regret the time they wasted when they were young.

Twenge said, "[Gen Z teenagers are less likely to] get together with friends in person, go to parties, go out with friends, date, ride in cars for fun, go to shopping malls, or go to the movies,"

What happened to going out and living. It’s not hard, students just need to find the right people.