The most effective way to understand contemporary culture is to analyze the trends of its youth

The statement claims that studying the trending in youth is the most effective way to learn about the contemporary culture in a country. Although it might sound reasonable at first glance, however, just by studying the trend in youth is far from enough to thoroughly understand the youth. In my opinion, to understand the contemporary culture, people from all ages must be studied.
First, I admit that trend in the young generation does compose a large portion of the contemporary in general and studying it will definitely be helpful in understanding of the contemporary culture of a society. As in today’s society, young people are more imaginative to introduce new thoughts and opinions to the society to form a new culture. Contemporary culture, in a nutshell, is greatly influenced by the new thoughts and trend from a society. Just like China in the 80s, a time that the reformation and opening just began; the young generation started to introduce new idea from the west about music, dressing and may other lifestyles, which greatly influenced the change the way people traditionally thinks in China during that time. It is undoubtable that by learning the trend the young Chinese during the 80s, one can get a great grasp of what was happening and a contemporary trend in China.
Nevertheless, people from all age groups must be studied to understand the culture. Although the trend in the young generation can be representative for the innovations, nevertheless, majority of the culture is still composed from people that are older than 30s. Because people in their middle age is the main produce force for a country’s economy, many of their own thoughts are also reflected through the economy life, which is a majority part of domestic culture. Imagine a country with a poor performance in economy, the most prominent thoughts in its society is probably asking for new policies or new government from the working class not the trend in youth. In this case, the thoughts for new policies became the most prominent element of contemporary culture instead of whatever is trending in the young generation. Admittedly, people might still pay attention to the new music genre in the young generation, but the need for reform is the most obvious and important. Therefore, just by analyzing the youth might miss some other important elements in culture.
For those who disagree might argue that generations, other than the younger ones, are not representative of the current culture because they only represent the culture and thinking when they were young. In fact, however, many of the thoughts from the older generations are adapting to the new trend. Many retired people, who did not have any knowledge about computers, are more likely to shop online for their convenience. And their thoughts about internet, is also representative to the contemporary culture, unlike many claimed that their thoughts are stagnant.
In a nutshell, it is unjustifiable to claim that studying of the trend in youth is the most effective way without considering the situations. To thoroughly understand a contemporary culture from a country, people and thoughts from all ages must be well studies to draw conclusions on the contemporary culture.