Every society has its problems, and we as Americans are fortunate enough to live in a wealthy, powerful, first-world nation in which most of our issues are not life-threatening or dire in any way. However, there a multitude of social issues that contribute to the inequality in our society. I compiled a list of the top ten things that have been bothering me lately and most importantly what we can do to combat some of these issues.

1. Our addiction to social media and how it desensitizes us.

Whether it's Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat, Tinder, Youtube, or Vine, we're constantly checking for updates, looking at our notifications, posting, and scrolling through our feeds during any minute of downtime. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, seeing that social media keeps us in contact with people we may not otherwise see or hear from, but the societal addiction to it can be socially damaging. Instead of meeting up with a friend to chat and have face-to-face conversation, people are more likely to send a message or snapchat. People are slowly beginning to lose basic interpersonal communication skills in a society that is so engrossed with the idea of communicating through a screen. Constantly knowing what your friends are doing every other second of the day eliminates the need to talk to them, and being able to see into people's lives 24/7 creates a false sense of closeness that could have otherwise been genuinely created and maintained through spending time with a person.

Via social media, we are able to know what is happening around the world constantly and instantaneously, which is awesome, and in today's society there is no excuse for being unaware of what is happening in the world around you. At the same time however, this constant exposure to often depressing, shocking, and angering news desensitizes us as we become used to seeing and hearing about daily tragedies in the world. Often times if things aren't directly affecting our lives, people ignore the stories and keep scrolling.

I love social media as much as the next person, but like all things, only in moderation. It's nice to unplug every once in a while, to call a friend instead of texting or Snapchatting, and to just shut my phone off and read a book on a rainy day.

2. The price of college tuition

The United States is one of the only developed nations that does not provide free college education to its citizens. Student loan debt is a worrisome burden placed on the shoulders of millions of college students. The average college student graduates a from a four-year institution with approximately $30,000 of student loan debt that typically takes ten or more years to pay off. It gets even worse after attending graduate school, where tuition is often times higher and academic scholarships are fewer and far between. Having a scholarship or a part time job helps to alleviate the cost of tuition, but more often than not it isn't enough to cover the expenses. The high cost of tuition often deters students from attending college and worries parents who cannot afford it, which forces students to take out loans with high interest rates that make the cost even scarier.

Maybe it's time to start treating higher education as a public good rather than a luxury only to be enjoyed by those who can afford it.

3. Body-shaming

Body-shaming, in all its forms, is extremely damaging to a person's self-esteem. We should all love our bodies no matter what they look like, and strive to be healthy, not to attain some unrealistic body type, because there is no such thing as the"perfect" body. We already have to deal with unrealistic expectations of beauty put on us by the media and the multi-billion dollar beauty and fashion industries that bank off of our insecurities, so why add onto that by body-shaming one another?

A recent study released by the Professional Association for Child Care and Early Years that surveyed 350 pediatricians showed that children as young as three years old were already concerned about being "too fat". This is extremely alarming, and 31 percent of the physicians surveyed noted that they encountered patients aged three to ten years old who expressed anxiety about their bodies.

Fortunately, brands such as Dove and Aerie have launched campaigns that celebrate real women's bodies that are unedited and not airbrushed to combat the unrealistic beauty expectations that cause insecurities and anxieties that plague both men and women. We as a society need to do better, and teach our young boys and girls to value their minds rather than their bodies, and to build each other up rather than tear each other down.

4. Gender norms

From a very young age, children are taught to conform to the norms of their gender. When a mother is expecting a son, she paints his room blue, and when she is expecting a daughter, she paints the room pink. Even before birth, the expectations for a child are gendered. Young boys are taught to be masculine: not to cry when they're hurt, to play sports, run around and get dirty, to play with toy cars and video games. Young girls are taught femininity: to watch Disney princess movies, to play with dolls and stuffed animals, to play with makeup and have an interest in fashion. As they grow up, women are expected to get married and have children, men are expected to get a job and support their families. Gender roles in the household aren't nearly as strict as they used to be, and it is common for both parents to work or for fathers to stay at home, but the norms still stand as part of our society.

I feel that girls shouldn't be expected to be feminine, and boys shouldn't have to be masculine. Young girls shouldn't hesitate to play football and hockey because they're "boys' sports" and young boys shouldn't hesitate to be cheerleaders or gymnasts because they're "girls' sports". Children should be raised the same regardless of their gender, and they should not be judged for what they like or don't like. Transgender children and adults should also be acknowledged by their preferred gender, and should not have to face scrutiny for expressing the identity they feel that they are.

5. Donald Trump.

The fact that this man got this far in the presidential election is perhaps the most disappointing, terrifying, and enraging thing about him. I personally cannot respect a presidential candidate, much less a person who uses fear tactics and racist hate-mongering to further his own political agenda, regardless of whether or not he actually believes the things he says. This man has raised racial tensions in our nation and has brought out the ugliest side of America, while simultaneously making us the laughing stock of the international community.

6. Islamophobia

Islamophobia, or the fear of Islam, is plaguing the nation. Presidential candidate Donald Trump wants to ban Muslims from entering the country, and many echo his sentiment. However, Islam does not equal terrorism, despite what some may think. In actuality, the Muslim community has publicly denounced ISIS and all acts of terror in the name of Islam on multiple occasions. Terrorists are not Muslims and Muslims are not terrorists, because anyone who uses Islam to justify violent acts is not a Muslim, just as any Christian who uses Christianity or the Bible to justify violence is not a real Christian. It is ridiculous to blame the entire Muslim community for the acts of terrorists, and our societal prejudice towards Muslims in America is a national problem. We need to combat Islamophobia by loving an accepting one another, as corny as that sounds.

7. Police brutality

Police brutality is the use of excessive force by law enforcement when no such force is required to address a situation. Police brutality can be seen in situations such as peaceful protests, as seen above where an officer uses pepper spray on a cowering crowd of college students. Many have fallen victim to police brutality, and it is an issue that enrages many Americans. It is evident that our justice system and law enforcement training programs need to be reformed from the top down. Officers only receive an average of ten hours of de-escalation training, in which they learn to de-escalate tense situations verbally and peacefully, while they spend an average of 50 hours training on how to use guns and other weapons. As a result, officers resort to violence in situations they do not know how to de-escalate, and lives are lost.

8. "White Lives Matter"

A prime example of racism being alive and well in modern-day America. The group has been recently deemed a hate group and a white supremacist group. The group was created in response to the Black Lives Matter movement, to which many respond with "All Lives Matter", however it completely ignores the entire problem. Of course, all lives matter, black lives, white lives, blue, green, purple, you name it. But the fact is that our country has a problem with racism, and as a result it seems that black lives matter less than others in our society. The entire mantra of Black Lives Matter has an implicit "too" at the end, indicating that yes, everyone obviously matters, but black lives should too.

9. Brock Turner

Ugh.

Brock Turner is not only an infuriating human being, but a symbol of the rape culture that is prevalent in our society. After only serving three months out of his six-month prison sentence for sexually assaulting a woman behind a dumpster, Brock Turner gets to return to his privileged life, while his victim will never be able to return to a sense of normalcy or comfort. While the prosecution pushed for a six-year sentence, judge Aaron Perksy gave him such a lenient sentence because "A prison sentence would have a severe impact on him" (as if the assault he committed didn't have a severe impact on the victim???). Turner however, is one of the very few sex offenders to even face a conviction, seeing that most rapes go unreported, and 97 out of every 100 rapists walk free.

Sexual assault plagues college campuses and the nation as a whole, and one in five women will be sexually assaulted in their lifetime. That is terrifying. What is even worse is the fact that our society tends to find any excuse for blaming victims for their own assault, and that college campuses do little to help victims for fear of hurting their reputation. Just recently a judge by the name of Robin Camp asked a victim in a rape case "Why couldn't you just keep your knees together?" he is now going under an investigation as to whether or not he loses his position. This comment however illustrates the reactions of law enforcement, colleges, and the public when confronted with a rape case. Victims are frequently asked degrading and irrelevant questions such as "what were you wearing?" and "how much did you have to drink?", and it is humiliating not only to be asked such questions but to have to relive such an ordeal when reporting an assault.

We need to stop victim blaming and treating alcohol as an excuse for sexual assault, as well as reform the processes in which victims must go through to report assaults so that they may feel more comfortable in doing so. Currently, there is a movement to reform rape kit laws so that it will be illegal to backlog old rape kits and so that the process of assessing rape kits moves faster. The link is below.

10. The fact that these problems even exist in 21st century America.

We have come a long way, but we still have a lot of work to do.