Sociology

The Americans’ culture today is so obsessed with acting or looking young. People are ready to do anything that can make them look young. They have gone to the extent of using wrinkle creams, hair dyes, and also going through surgical procedures so that they can look younger than their age (Park, 2002). They place high value on staying. It clear from the magazines, televisions, and billboards where by everything is all about the physical look but not the inner beauty and experience. The main reason for such an obsession is the impact of the technology. The technology lifestyle is more enjoyable than the ‘old is gold” times.

Mostly, elderly people are isolated by the rest of the people because they are thought to be boring. Therefore, continued isolation lea to social stigma among them. When people grow old, the society takes them as a burden. They require more attention but in most cases, they are ignored. They may also suffer from age stigma because the media an everyone else portray old age negatively.

There are so many stereotypes around the elderly. For example; popular culture stereotypes the elderly as weak people, useless in the society, a burden, childlike, illiterate, unattractive, sickly, senile, cranky, greedy, and so forth (Lippmann, 2017). These stereotypes are not correct. Old people are not illiterate. Their memory just grows old as well and their memory goes down as they continue to age.

In the culture of the United States of America, to grow old means to become outdated or to become useless in the society. The culture places so much value in young people and everyone wants to look young forever despite their age. The culture landscape of the United States has it that once someone grows old, that person cannot help the society in anyway and that he or she actually becomes a burden to the rest (Landsberg, 2018). It is everything to look or act like a young person.

However, there are cultures that appreciate old age. For example, the culture of Korea appreciates the elderly. In Korea, the young must respect the elderly and take care of them. The young people in a family have a duty to take care of the old members of that family.

References

Landsberg, A. (2018). Prosthetic memory: the ethics and politics of memory in an age of mass culture. In Memory and popular film. Manchester University Press.

Lippmann, W. (2017). Public opinion. Routledge.

Park, D. C. (2002). Aging, cognition, and culture: a neuroscientific perspective. Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews, 26(7), 859-867.