Why Don't Young People Vote? Summary and Questions

This article basically talks about the reasons why such a small percentage young people vote in our elections. According to the article, in the 2012 elections, only 26% of the 64 million young eligible voters voted. With technology right at our hands, we are informed 24/7 from social media to news and we are the most educated and socially diverse generation of all time. But even with all this, young voter turnout is still very low. One reason for this is because many of us have the mindset that politics doesn't and will never affect us so why should we pay attention? Another is 50% of Generation Y identify as independent and so party politics and corporatocracy is not appealing to young people. But overall mainly to get our vote and attention, many politicians are succumbing to our childish acts to gain our interest and that is not how it should be. Instead we should be raising our selfs up and just start participating more for the better of our future.

I see myself in the author's description to some extent. The author talks about how young people do not see politics actually affecting them in the future so they do not really care about what is going on. I was very much like that when I was in middle school, but once i got to high school, I have slowly started to see the importance of paying attention and participating for the effects it can have on my future. Before I thought like the rest of everyone else, "my vote doesn't matter". But now I see that everyone thinks like that and when everyone thinks like that, there is a big demographic not voting that could have a huge impact if they did so now I have started to care more. However I do see myself as an independent, but I do not think that party politics doesn't appease me.

I agree and disagree with the author's statements. I do agree the the statement that young people just do not care and feel like politics won't affect them later. They feel like their vote doesn't matter but all of them feel like that so their vote does actually matter. I disagree with the statement that many people are identifying themselves as independent because I feel like the majority of people I know and am friends with have a political preference or religion, but then again, that might just be because I live in Alabama where most people are conservative and christian.