Laziness: An Opinion or Misunderstood Cultural Norm

After looking through, and thinking on our recent discussion. I feel as though there are many people who are of the opinion that young Americans are becoming more lethargic as the years go by, with respect to education and motivation. Time after time we hear that we are no longer producing professionals in science and engineering due to increasing laziness in younger generations. I think that this opinion should not be counted out, because it is a valid argument. However, can we not also say that young Americans have now found themselves expressing new cultural norms that clearly no longer flow with older generational views and opinions. Today many of us would agree that we need more science and engineering professionals, and many of these new professionals would have most likely been born in the late 80's. These people have lived their entire lives with advanced technology, where older generations were just being introduced to it by the tie they were already in their 20's or older.  Personal Computers, The Internet, Cable TV, digitized media, text messaging, smart phones, laptop computers, wireless technologies, smart cars, smart TV's,  and social media and networking (Which connects to virtually every piece of technology you own!), and the list goes on. Every year all of these technologies get faster, smaller, thinner, and prettier. My point is that this technology has improved exponentially over the past 20 years and these so called lazy people have never known life without it. Being a product of this generation myself...it is no wonder that many of these people were not interested in going into science and technology, because they have always had science and technology around them and expect it to always be there for them always getting better. It's almost as if we are spoiled...not lazy. The older generations had put in the time and work to develop the technology, and the younger generation is so acclimated to it that they never even considered getting into that work force themselves because, in their eyes, they didn't need to. Thus we see the creation of a new culture, and in it a set of norms that determines what we feel is important to us, and will determine the development of new cultural norms in the future. In any case, if we do not get our students interested in math and science, the United States will definitely loose its competitiveness and innovation to the nations who are currently exceeding our abilities. I do feel as though many of our competing countries have the same chance find themselves in a lull similar to ours, and we will eventually find a happy equilibrium in a more globalized world.