Social Phenomenon Problems or Issues

The existence of certain learned behaviors impacts the entirety of society in several beneficial and detrimental ways. Social phenomena is the influence and influencer of a society of respondents, giving rise (and fall) to new phenomena based on the state of humanity. The modern world faces many social phenomenon issues; many of these issues are obscure in their development, impact and subsequent implications.

Marriage is not what it once was in America: Modern society no longer holds dear the same attitude toward family values as it did decades ago. With new family types on the rise, it is easier than it was in the past to engage in divorce. Reasons for divorce may include financial woes, sexual troubles, mid-life crises and a breakdown in communication.

The modern social phenomenon of school violence has yielded many scapegoats, including violence in media, drugs and bad parenting. It is in the more censored American society, however, where gun violence dominates schools, and not in Europe, where censorship isn't taken as extreme. The rise of school violence has also led to a spike in anxiety regarding youth violence. The influence of school violence is seen as media-related and self-perpetuating throughout American society.

The use of drugs is nothing new in the context of history, with marijuana for medical use dating back to 2737 BC China. Only in more affluent countries of the west have the social implications and widespread usage of drugs for medicinal and recreational purposes skyrocketed into "disease" territory. Ronald Reagan's war on drugs highlighted the counter-culture's reliance on altered states as a rising concern toward the established order of western civilization. This war, however, continues to rage on without an end in sight; drug misuse continues to be a social phenomenon with reaches into health care, psychiatry, social policy, criminology, human rights, politics and even economics.

The gaming revolution started humbly with titles such as Pong and Pac-Man. The evolution of competitor based games rapidly gave way to multiplayer games with emphasized graphics and story-telling capabilities. Today, video games are the highest selling form of entertainment media in America, overtaking movies and music. Online video games are enjoyed the world over by millions of players, spawning an entire culture that produces fan-fiction and Internet memes, while simultaneously influencing pop culture. The social phenomenon of video games, however, has led many skeptics of the industry to condemn it as a source of embedding violent behavior in our youth. Games like Call of Duty: Black Ops, for instance, fall blame to random acts of violence, such as the Oslo massacre.