Whats Normal Anyways

Speaking for the present generation, there are millions of new genres,
technologies, and innovative thoughts being used everyday. However, as a
college student, it has come to my attention that the originality that every
person once seemed to have is now disappearing. It seems that almost every
other day there is a new trend or fab that people, mainly in my age group,
become compelled to take part in. But, for what reasons do we have to
follow others so much that we lose our own uniqueness? Psychologists and
sociologist have spent decades studying human behavior to determine that
these trends that we follow are called social norms.
The term social norm refers to a rule in society that everyone seems
to follow to avoid ridicule. These rules are typically unspoken mutual
agreements and arent written down anywhere. But when did we start
abiding by norms? According to the fourteenth volume of the Current
Direction in Psychological Science social norms go as far back as our huntergatherer days. Hunters wouldnt offer meat that they had scavenged to nonfamily members. It was normal for the time since meat was such a rarity.
While fruits and vegetables where relatively stable, hunters had around a
forty percent chance of bringing home meat.
Of course these arent the same norms that we deal with today. Times
have changed drastically since our hunting for survival days. We now focus

on abnormal actions and tend to leave the people following the trends alone.
You may be wondering why we pay more attention to a smaller portion of the
population? The answer is really within the question. Why would we? Normal
is not entertaining, or something to talk about. However, we need rule
followers to keep the world turning. Without these law abiding citizens we
wouldnt have some of the fundamental utilities that we rely on. For
example, we need cops to follow the rules of an officer in order to keep
criminals off our streets. In return, we as citizens must follow the law so that
we are not seen as outcasts or criminals.
To narrow the reality of social norms in a college students life a
psychology class out of Brigham Young University put together a blog.
Students posted in this blog with stories where they went against a social
norm. As I read through their posts it dawned on me how little changes in
certain actions can stand out. An example that relates closely to my personal
life at the gym comes from a female blogger named Tatianna Herman. While
at the gym you will notice how everyone usually wears the same style of
clothes, athletic and non-restricting. Tatianna decided to wear Sunday
clothes instead and ended up receiving all of the available attention. Another
student, Tianna Freeman, explained the rules of sidewalks, discussing how
she broke the rules by walking on the opposite side. Now obviously these two
students didnt reap total chaos with their petty disobedience, but their
minor actions did draw attention from others and could have possibly led to a
dispute.

While some social norms are communal, I feel that a lot of social norms
are age oriented. Younger generations are not expected to act in the same
way as someone who is twenty years older. So when it comes to the article
on CNNs website by Kelly Wallace Binge Drinking 101: Learning to curb the
college trend I think that she has a biased perspective on college drinking.
Granted, underage drinking causes problems with human development and
it has been known to ruin a few students lives, but its almost a social norm
for college students to drink and party. Its what most students look forward
to the most, because once they graduate and start their career they wont
have time to go out and party. Reading this article as a college student is
somewhat enraging since we are being told to do something that we know
previous generations have been doing since the beginning. I get that school
is a place for learning, but there needs to be time for fun and adventure
while were young. I think if Mrs. Wallace would have written an article on
how to keep students safer while drinking, it would have left me with a better
impression.
A great advocate for my theories on social norms is Christopher
McCandless. Chris was a college graduate that dropped everything to go find
himself in the wild. Jon Krakauer wrote a novel on McCandlesss life which
gave insight into the struggles and decisions that McCandless had to live
through up until he died on the Alaskan frontier. Through out this journey
Chris broke many social norms, some big and some small. What stuck out to
me in his venture to find himself was how accepted he was with the new

people he encountered, even though he went against what I think is normal. I

expected him to be almost shunned by the people that he met. However, as I
read further into his story I realized that there were others like him
disobeying social norms.
Seeing Christopher McCandless stand-out and do the unexpected gave
me a new insight on how someone should live their life. While it may not be
a very common trend for college graduates to drop out of society like Chris, I
do think that we need to break the guidelines that are set in place by our
peers. It seems as if we are letting society shape us when in reality we need
to be shaping society with our unique personalities. Not saying that everyone
should reap havoc to the world and change our entire way of life. But in this
day in time change is what we need; there is only finite amount of time given
for all things, including social norms.