OCR Text |
Show 4 Tuesday August 21, 2012 OPINION THEN www.dailyutahchronicle.corn NOW the MAX WOODALL/The Daily Utah Chronicle Nonvoters forfeit impacting the future T he level of irresponsibility present in the young student population today is mindboggling. With the fate of the rest of our lives literally in the balance, the vast majority of us are content to sit and watch, if we even find the time to do that much. As notoriously low voter turnout records show, students generally just do not participate. Less than 3o percent of students voted in the 2010 elections. This is even lower than Utah's general voting rate, which is among the lowest in the nation at 36percent. Voter apathy is bad in any demographic, but in the case of students it is particularly troublesome because our habits of social and civic respon- StaffWriter sibility are set here. Participation in our school elections, which is notoriously low, also contributes to our voting habits. To make matters worse, it seems the information young people generally expose themselves to is of lower quality than the already dreadful media older demographics prefer Campus corners to cure boredom e first week of school is always exciting. You have the anxiety of starting classes, the anticipation of seeing friends BRANDON LI again and the stress of trying to RIDDLE learn everything presented to you. You start to realize you can do whatever you want because your parents are not around, and then there is Homecoming, the Field House week-long event full of superhuman Something is better than amounts of school pride. What fol- nothing, right? Just southwest of lows these events, however, is a cripthe University Campus Store and pling plague that eventually afflicts a stone's throw from Rice-Eccles any student — boredom. Stadium lies the Field House. Although there is no vaccine for boredom, there are a few places "[It's] the best place to meet new around campus that might be able to people and become active," said Alec treat the symptoms. So here are the Daghlian, a junior in exercise sports top five places on campus to kick you physiology. out of the realm of boredom and onto Exercise and playing sports are the path that might become memory hardly ever boring, and come on, you lane. get to look at buff dudes or toned girls while you're there. How is this Marriott Library a bad idea? Although some might not expect the library to be a worthy place to Union cure boredom because it is associated It's not cliché to go to the Union with the stress of finals and papers, it when you are bored. Face it — there has several nooks and crannies avail- is a bowling alley, pool tables and of able to find some peace and quiet, as course, food. well as a café to get your caffeine fix. "I loved to go to the room to the far south of the Union," said Jake Moore, HPER Highway a recent alumnus of the U. "It has a To the untrained eye, the HPER fireplace and in the winter I would sit Highway is a long slab of sidewalk by it and take a nap." that connects nearly the entire campus, but to others it is a mecca for The Pie Pizzeria — Honorable people watching, longboarding or, Mention from time to time, witnessing epic The reason this place didn't make skateboard crashes. it onto the list is because, technically, it is not on campus. When you are Heritage Center bored past 9 p.m. there isn't much What better place is there to campus will do for you, unless you meet new people than the central are willing to cross University Street. point of the Residence Halls? Ev- So when you want something hot eryone goes to the HC. Whether and greasy and are thirsty for somethey are freshmen who haven't thing a little stronger than Diet Coke, quite learned how to cook for the Pie Pizzeria is the place to be. themselves or the friends of those who have a few extra transfer Students should take advantage meals, all sorts of people spend of what our school has to offer. So time there. There are also video don't be afraid to check out the crazy games, TVs and music rooms or skateboarders and beautiful people if you are looking for a romantic on campus. It's better than contaview or a peaceful place to hang, gious boredom. Legacy Bridge is just down the hill. b.riddle@ chronicle.utah.edu Staff-Writer (cue Fox News) — if we expose ourselves to newsworthy information at all. All of this adds up to a failure by students to understand the responsibility we have to society and above all, to ourselves, to turn out at the polls. This failure has two important consequences. First, in the short term, we see elected officials have little incentive to prioritize the needs of younger demographics over the needs of others who actually vote. Decision makers in any administration are only accountable to their particular selectorate, or the group of people who choose said decision makers. By voluntarily removing ourselves from such selectorates, students sacrifice their ability to hold leaders accountable. As a result, our needs as students are easily ignored. This leads to fewer resources being dedicated to education and other factors that impact our lives. As the people who will shoulder the responsibility of moving the country into the future, students should be an obvious priority. However, we cannot blame anyone but ourselves as long as we fail to give leaders a reason to remember us. If this was not bad enough, our irresponsibility has a second, more important consequence. The absence of youth in the decision-making process leads to decisions that do not give future consequences the weight they deserve. This should come as little surprise when we consider that choices being made by almost all leaders regarding long-term issues will not ultimately impact them — at least not as much as they will impact US. Again, we see we have nobody to blame but ourselves for this consequence as we fail to give such leaders an adequate incentive to consider future impacts. These consequences taken together, our lack of participation, coupled with our tendency to remove ourselves from the political news of the day, force us to face future challenges that should be completely preventable. letters@ chronicle.utah.edu |