Vietnam Survey Essay, Research Paper
Survey of The Sixties and Early Seventies
In the 1960 s, the baby boomers became teenagers and were growing up in the Cold War. Because of the threat of nuclear disaster, many of these young people felt they were living on the edge of disaster. Many of them blamed their elders who had grown up in the Depression and World War II , this created the generation gap . The generation gap was brought on by the many differences in beliefs and values between the older and younger generations. One of the differences was the use of drugs. People who used drugs were, on average, younger than those who didn t and had a weaker relationship with their parents. Looking at these charts, its suggests that age, drug use, and relationships with parents were all related.
According to the data and charts, more men and women had friends who did drugs than those who didn t (chart 1&2). But, the data does not say if the person we asked did drugs themselves. When I compared the use of drugs to the year of graduation, the average person who had friends that used drugs graduated in 1972 and those who had friends that didn t do drugs graduated in 1969 (chart 3). This shows that people who had friends that used drugs were generally younger than those who didn t.
Because of the generation gap, people were growing apart from their parents and the older age group. The younger people believed that the older generation was too inhibited and too materialistic. Comparing use of drugs to relationship with parents, I found that men and women who had friends that used drugs had a weaker relationship (6.8) with their parents than those who didn t (7.7), (chart 4).
In conclusion the sixties and early seventies seamed like a time where the baby boomers were breaking away from the conformist ideas of their parents and elders. These young people created what was called the generation gap and tried to not to fall into the mainstream of consumerism like their post Depression-era parents had once did. Because of this, relationships with parents were weakened and people were more experimental with their sexuality and drug use. We surveyed over 300 men and women to see how this time period affected them and what their views were on the hippie movement, Vietnam War.
In using the graphs and the surveyed data, I learned how to compile facts and opinions and use them to prove a thesis. The charts were very useful but were hard to put together. I felt that the people I interviewed myself were open to talk about the sixties and they didn t seem as uncomfortable with the questions than I thought they would be, like the questions about drug use and relationship with their parents. I also learned that even though the people I interviewed didn t go to the war they still had strong feelings against the war and the Vietnam War had an impact on America then and now.