The decline of self control

As the current youth of America, Generation Y, the Millenial Generation, we face a whole multitude of first world problems that didn’t exist just a decade ago. As proof, there’s a whole category of memes dedicated to our trivial issues. Many of us live in the age of excess, in which not having enough is not the problem, but instead having too much. There is too much food, and it’s too caloric and cheap, so it’s bound to detriment the health of our entire nation. There are an abundance of crash diets trending around the web, and so many diets started and broken. There are too many addictive video games that produce whole legions of dedicated gamers sinking massive amounts of time into improving league rankings. There are too many choices of social media — Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Tumblr, and there are too many time-wasting websites — Reddit, Imgur, Buzzfeed.

We live in the age of “addictions,” like Internet addictions, credit card addictions and so on. Even though these vices don’t seem like actual health conditions, they’re still given the moniker because they do facilitate uncontrollable behaviors. There is simply too much of all the things that are bad for us. There are so many sources of temptation constantly bombarding us every day that it is inevitable that we will slip up. How can we resist checking our phones every five minutes when unlimited texting plans are getting progressively cheaper and increasingly accessible, when smartphones have push notifications that alert users to every happening on Facebook in real-time, when the large corporations who produce smartphones and apps and social media websites are trying to hook users in and get them addicted? These commercial pressures are too much to resist.

I get the sentiment that people feel like these so-called addictions are out of their control. This is evident in the recent push to implement taxes on sugary beverages so as to reduce obesity rates in the US. There is a glut of articles on Yahoo! claiming eating from large plates “makes” people consume more calories. Amongst college-age students, there are people using SelfControl, the app that blocks certain websites, because they don’t think they have the will to resist those websites without it. The name of the app is the most ironic part — instead of being able to police our own Internet usage, we have to implement a technological shutdown so that we have absolutely no choice — the very antithesis of self-control.

Although it’s true that resisting temptation is perhaps harder today than for the previous generation because of the sheer variety of things that can destroy our willpower, I think there’s still something to be said for old-fashioned self-control. No one is “making” us eat the food from study breaks — even though it is hard to resist cupcakes at 10 p.m. (from personal experience). Nobody is compelling us to spend exorbitant amounts of time on Facebook; it is very possible to resist. Procrastination doesn’t have to be a given. Our proxes are essentially credit cards on campus, but that doesn’t mean we have to use them.

There’s a certain attitude of defeatism I sense from our generation that isn’t completely accurate. I see this defeatism in the media when The New York Times publishes articles like “Are Your Friends Making You Fat?” about a sociological study that behaviors that encourage obesity can be “contagious.” I certainly see this defeatism in myself when I end up on Tumblr for extensive periods of time even though I’m supposed to be doing a problem set.

I think people should give themselves more credit, have more faith in their own willpower and self-control. People often say that willpower is a muscle that grows stronger with use. As much as most college students stress about procrastination, poor time management and lack of focus, the answer is not to use another app to block websites, but perhaps to exercise the self control to just close the laptop ourselves.

Barbara Zhan is a freshman from Plainsboro, N.J. She can be reached at barbaraz@princeton.edu.