by Elijah Lutz, Opinion Editor
We college students have a problem, one that is indiscriminate in its pollution of minds. This problem is apathy, defined as “a lack of interest, enthusiasm or concern.” If you read the first two sentences of this article and thought, “Hmm, I don’t really care,” then you have just proven my point for me.
College students are uniquely plagued by the inability to muster up the enthusiasm to do what they are either required to do or choose to do. This ranges from classes and assignments and extracurricular activities a student may have originally signed up for to even caring for themselves and their wellbeing. This curse is almost like a slippery slope in its own right: you start with not caring about your work in a gen-ed class, then one thing leads to another and you haven’t received a decent night’s rest in several weeks.
The long and short of this issue is that we have to change our behaviors to fix the apathy. Alex Silberzweig, a student journalist from the Johns Hopkins News-Letter, correctly argues that the behavior of older students has an effect on the behaviors of incoming freshmen. He said when older students say, “They will pull tons of all-nighters, will be able to afford nothing but ramen,” it “gives newly-minted college students the excuse to completely disregard their welfare.”
I agree with Silberzweig, yet I think that the plague has continued beyond just the freshmen and underclassmen. Even upperclassmen use the “well, I’m in college” attitude to excuse their self-destructive behavior. While it is admittedly true that there is only one time you can experience college, that is no excuse to treat yourself and your body poorly. Nor is it an excuse to not care about your work and responsibilities either.
Jason O’Neal of the Southwestern College Sun argued that the “[zombie-like] epidemic is the result of information overload and technology.” He said, “Dumbed-down masses take things at face value without questioning or thinking on their own.” This article makes a major point that isn’t a whole different argument, yet a building block within it. We, as a society, are too connected with the world: diving deep into social media and our electronic devices far more than dedicating our time to our studies or responsibilities.
This is something that I can’t deny, even personally. I have found recently that an attachment to playing video games has hindered my schoolwork, electing one night to play with friends for about eight hours rather than studying for an important exam the next morning. It was the desire to connect with that game, combined with the constant lie I told myself (I will just stay awake all night and study) that caused me to not care enough and, therefore, ignore my work. I just didn’t care enough to do what I needed to do.
The way I see it, here at Asbury at least, we pay way too much money to not care about what we do. Nevertheless, that doesn’t change the fact that it is hard to get motivated over gen-eds or repetitive work. When we have other distractions and a misguided mentality tempting us away from caring about what we need to be focusing on, we have the tendency to choose the easy way out. It is harder to do the work that matters, and far easier to goof-off. And that is a big problem.
So let us, as a community, choose to focus on what matters. If we can find it in ourselves to elect to make this decision, we can end the “zombie-ism” that is spreading across Asbury and schools nationwide. We can proactively make this advancement for our future and the behavior of our generation. Make this change, if not for our peers, to show the old people who say that millennials are the bane of the Earth and existence that we aren’t the worst generation the world has seen.