Affects of Westernization on Youth and Culture Essay

Youth are the back bone to a nation. The young generation occupies a special place in a society. They can change the future of the society with their spirited behavior. In a broader sense, the future of any society depends on the youth. The youth are ready to adapt changes because they are young, in search of truth and they are open to different ideas. Young people have better concentrating span contrary to old ones and that is how changes are brought in a society. All societies pay special attention to the youth. The youth acts as the motivating force of revolution. No revolution can be successful without the efforts of youth in a course of action. Their youthful energy enables them to perform great in every field and enables them to be innovative and skillful. Culture is the complete range of learned human behavior patterns. It includes a set of Customs, beliefs, and traditions. Culture is also shaped by Religion, language, festivals, dress, arts and craft. Culture is passed down from generation to generation. Youth of a society preserves its culture. All Cultures are naturally prone to change and, at the same time, to resist change. There are three general sources of influence that are responsible for both change and resistance to it: Forces at work within a society, Contact between societies and Changes in the natural environment. Within a society, processes leading to change include invention and culture loss. Inventions may be either technological or ideological. Technological inventions include new tools, energy sources, and transportation methods. Culture loss is an unavoidable result of old cultural patterns being replaced by new ones. For example, not many Pakistanis today know how to care for a horse. A century ago, this was common knowledge among many people because buggies and horse-riding were the only means of transportation. Since then, vehicles with internal combustion engines have replaced horses and horse care knowledge lost its importance. As a result, children are rarely taught these skills. Instead, they are trained in the use of the new technologies of automobiles, televisions, cellular phones, computers, and iPods. The processes leading to change that occur as a result of contact between societies are diffusion, acculturation and transculturation. Diffusion is the movement of things and ideas from one culture to another. When diffusion occurs, the form of a trait may move from one society to another but not its original cultural meaning. Acculturation is what happens to an entire culture when unfamiliar traits diffuse in on a large scale and significantly replace traditional cultural patterns. Transculturation is what happens to an individual when he or she moves to another society and adopts its culture. The word westernization is defined as â€Å"The social process of becoming familiar with or converting to the customs and practices of Western civilization†. The youth of Pakistan is talented and dedicated. Unfortunately, the youth today is involved in activities which are neither useful to them nor the nation. All that keeps them busy during the day are games, TV shows, movies and socializing with their peers which these days, is commonly called â€Å"hanging out†. At night, they’re busy chatting on the internet, listening to music, attending late night parties and some are even involved in illegal activities like smoking and drinking. They have no vision and instead of improving themselves or doing something productive, they choose to waste their time. All this is because of westernization of youth in Pakistan. Over the past decade, the youth of Pakistan has been adversely affected by western culture. A significant change has been observed in the culture of Pakistan. Many regional rituals have either been forgotten or replaced by western rituals; young people prefer western attire over national dress, fast food is preferred over regional food, family values are not practiced the way they used to, dating has become very common and violent behavior has become a trend among youngsters. In such a situation, culture cannot be passed on in its original form; it would rather be modified or to be more specific, westernized.