While being young is not officially pronounced a crime, it is a criteria for numerous extreme judgments in society today. Contextualizing this discourse locally, there appears to be more negative things said about young people than the positives. If we do not challenge this mentality now, its roots will grow deeper.
If we adamantly remain stuck in the ways of the past, while adjustment will cause us no harm, our young people will always be overtaken by their global peer competitors.
Today, photography assists human memory in keeping records of what happened, when, where, and who was involved. The society has as well grown so fond of pictures that events are not complete without them. A key social impact is that how people would appear in the photos determines how they dress and carry themselves about. Nonetheless, the vulnerability of the human person has skyrocketed in our times as we leave behind us almost everywhere (especially in developed cities), photographic footprints of our appearances in those places.
he digital space conditions us to work at its own speed, which is considerably faster as compared to the normal human thought and task processing speed. While we are able to process tasks more deeply with our mental strengths, we are not left undamaged when we switch our attention every 40 seconds (the said global average) to different, and oftentimes unrelated tasks.
The reason why the word ‘lifestyle’ is used to cover a whole lot of rejected behaviours is its perceived neutrality. When one says, ‘it’s just a lifestyle’ it suggests harmlessness and absence of need for interference as it is ‘just’ a lifestyle; Akin to saying, doing the same thing in a little bit of a different way. oung people are not at the service of lifestyles without a damage to their own very person.
The practice of having realistic plans and goals helps us to remain focused and to grow. Our resources, be it time, money, property, etc. can only be properly managed with clear plans and goals, otherwise they are all at risk of going to waste.
In many African countries and cultures, the biased thinking that a child cannot be brought up to be disciplined without being caned and physically punished is still flourishing. We need to join hands to end torture in children.
Short of appropriate limits, raising young people would become a dangerous “all-join” as Nigerians would say; A situation where everything is allowed, to any extent desired by the parts involved, for any reason, anywhere, and at any time. But this is not how life works.
It is common to hear in the media, news, public addresses, celebrations, etc. that leaders are praised so much. Often times the praises are exaggerated as compared to the performance of these leaders. It is high time we question when all this began and where it is taking us as a people. Why do we entertain it?
When injustice becomes normalized, denial of rights becomes normative as well. Then honouring the people’s due rights becomes a kind of privilege or favour. Gender-based injustice, one of the oldest forms of discrimination, has had serious impacts on the wider society. We need to respond to it as a matter of urgency and with a lot of reasonableness and wit as it touches on people’s cultures.
The elderly, according to the United Nations are among the fastest growing population, even more than that of children from 0 to 5 years of age. According to World Health Organization factsheets, in 2018 it was recorded for the first time in history that people aged 65 and above outnumbered children aged 0 to 5 years. While global healthcare adapts itself to cater for the fast-growing elderly population, society too needs to adapt to the same.