Do people even read the newspaper anymore?
In company with the Merriam-Webster word of the year “polarization,” often used to describe the divided state of the country, and the Oxford word of the year “brain rot,” defined as “the supposed deterioration of a person’s mental or intellectual state,” The Collegiate deemed apathy to be the word of the year among students at Grand Rapids Community College, as reflected by the empty hallways even during finals week.
Defined by the Oxford Dictionary, apathy is the “lack of interest, enthusiasm, or concern.”
A stark wave of apathy settled on campus around the mid-semester mark when attendance around the college faced a visible decline. Suddenly, the early semester problem of struggling to find a parking spot was magically resolved, as many spots even on the roof remained open, and in-class attendance suffered a notable decrease.
But how did we get here?
It’s not abnormal for students to slowly lose steam as the semester progresses. It’s a part of education that’s arguably as old as education itself, but in recent years the weight of the world seems to have grown while the value of a degree has decreased.
This semester alone the United States has seen 109 mass shootings since August 27, according to the Gun Violence Archive. The GVA categorizes mass shootings as events where four or more people are injured, meaning that instances such as the shooting at local Alger Heights Middle School aren’t reflected in the national tally, along with numerous other shootings that have resulted in injuries or death.
For many students at GRCC, especially those in Generation Z, their entire educational experience has been shaped by school shootings. It’s hard to maintain motivation with the TV running in the background while a reporter describes how someone went rampant 15 minutes away from the town you grew up in.
The first time something like this happens it’s shocking. But when something happens over a hundred times in one year, the shock isn’t there anymore.
But the thing is, the shock should never go away. Tragedies should never become so frequent that they can be brushed off as no more than another phone notification. When that happens, apathy settles in.
For the phone-addicted generation, mass shootings weren’t the only frequently troubling notification.
Amidst an election year, tensions grew throughout the country as two unprecedented campaigns unfolded. As convicted felon Donald Trump ran for a third time and sitting Vice President Kamala Harris ran a 107-day campaign, a plethora of issues plagued voters’ minds, as the cost of living has continued to rise, alarm bells rang for many people who felt their rights were being taken away.
But as we head into the new year and a new semester we have the chance to change. The antithesis of apathy is empathy and empathy is a shared emotion. Opposite of how apathy tends to grow in solitude, empathy grows through connection.
In the coming year be open, honest and present with the people you love. You may end up surprised with the love that you receive in return. And who knows, maybe next December the word of the year will be empathy.
If you made it to the end of this article without clicking on a notification, thank you.
