I think this is an issue that won't be going away any time soon. Simple factors of the evolving world around us are contributing to this type of issue. For example, the world is becoming a place where people who have grown up with the internet are becoming young adults and, naturally, more vocal in their opinions. We have yet to see what the world will look like with the younger generations becoming more and more of a prevalent force in the national dialogue.
Until now, many grew up in a world without this extreme degree of connection that is available today. Previous generations grew up in a time without constant exposure to these various forms of media. The world has never been so well connected, news has never been so immediate and abundantly available, and people experienced a life that was a bit more simple and disconnected. Growing up with the internet as a part of every day life, younger generations only know a world where information is instantly available to anyone with interest. When you grow up in an environment where full disclosure of information is practically instant and routine, it makes for people who are used to forming lightning fast opinions without necessarily hearing all sides of the story, or perhaps even based off of misinformation or plain old shoddy reporting. Society will continue to become more and more opinionated and entitled because that's the culture that is overwhelmingly embraced by people online.
The evidence is pretty much everywhere - without generalizing about EVERY person out there, I feel it can be pretty safely stated that the lifestyles of the youth of today are pretty vastly different from that of our previous generations. Whether you look at how we spend our free time, how we carry on conversations, or our ethical/moral code, it can be pretty clearly seen that people are changing due to this media saturated environment that we live in each day. The anonymity of the internet has spawned a "troll" mentality in many people, and having so many outlets to easily put in your two cents on virtually any topic has allowed many people to believe that they are in fact entitled to contribute it, no matter how uninformed a person may truly be. I tend to call people who engage in this type of behavior "armchair experts". People watch all of these bad reality tv shows and read an article posted to Facebook and suddenly they're informed enough to form an intelligent, constructive opinion, and they can't wait to jump online and tell the world all about it.
I think this emergence of entitlement has combined with another issue that has been taking society by storm lately. The world is also becoming a place where sensitivity to every little complaint or dissatisfaction is suddenly a critical issue that needs to be dealt with. Business has focused so closely on customer satisfaction that it has turned the world into a reactionary horde of screaming children whenever we aren't happy with something, no matter how ridiculous. Even the most insane, ignorant opinions easily become bandwagons for us to jump on with the increasing popularity and accessibility of things like online petitions and social networking. If you're upset about something and decide you need to find support for your beliefs, no matter how absurd, chances are you can find 50,000 other people out there who are just as ridiculous as you are.
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