Instant Gratification

This week in class we discussed instant gratification. Instant gratification surrounds daily. All the time, teens are forced to make decisions on whether or not they should do certain things. Most the time teens would much rather have something right away than having to wait for it. The thing would have to be pretty good in order to be worth waiting for. This can be seen through plenty of examples in life. Teenagers have the choice of whether or not to wait to drink until it is legal. I know a lot of kids that are involved in underage drinking. I personally never will. Teenagers are constantly faced with difficult decision involving instant gratification.

We also discussed intrinsic and extrinsic motivation and rewards. Extrinsic rewards can work for some time but aren’t necessarily the best. Whether people do certain things for the right reasons comes into question. For example, our class wants to bring in a bunch of money to have a pizza party. The real question is then, are we bringing in the money to donate to Haiti or just for the pizza party? This is where intrinsic and extrinsic motivation comes into play. Another example would be when it comes to donating to any type of charity. I know if you were to donate to ASPCA, they will give you a bunch of free stuff, like t-shirts and book bags. This makes me wonder how many people will donate just for the free stuff or actually do it for the cause.