It’s an exciting year for upcoming seniors with the 2024 Presidential Election now already shaping up with the first couple of debates done and dusted. For many of these soon to be seniors, a lot of them will be eighteen years old before November of next year, which means there could potentially be new, fresh, young American voters eager to have their voices heard. 

There’s just one issue; they don’t care. 

“Young people don’t care about politics because they have no reason to care. When you think about it, young people generally speaking don’t pay bills of any kind, or have a mortgage, or full time jobs, or kids, or a 401K,” says Payton Lutterman, a sixteen-year old junior. Payton may not reach his eighteenth birthday before the next election, but he has an interest as strong as any compared to others. 

Unfortunately, it seems like he is among the minority that does share that same interest. According to Teach Magazine, young people and particularly adolescents, especially don’t care about politics because of the unimportance it is to them. 

“If we want kids to vote, to be engaged, we need to address them directly, hear their concerns, give them a reason to be engaged. This means honest, direct, adult-like conversations, not high speed ‘kid’ conversations” (Young).

It seems like the key to teenage engagement in the world’s modern problems is to educate with a purpose. Give something to young people that they can relate to, aspire to learn about, have an opinion on. Without education, people usually follow the crowd. 

“Most teenagers will take after their parents’ beliefs until they are of an age to develop their own ideas and opinions. Some do the exact opposite of their parents’ beliefs to be rebellious. Either way, the outcome is the same; blindly following others’ opinions.” said Lutterman. 

With so much happening in the world today, it’s hard enough knowing what’s true and what’s not. However, when you don’t give people a reason to care for a cause, they simply won’t. Election after election in recent years has proven to produce exceptionally low American participation. The engagement among teenagers and young adults is even lower than that. Only after politics takes into account everyone’s problems whether it be young, old, man, or woman, will the decline of the American spirit continue to dwindle.