2026-10-22: I found these old writings when I was cleaning up some stuff and added them here.
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It is argued that in recent years, number of teenage volunteers in charitable organizations of Pleasantville is decreasing and a major reason implicitly suggested is that the teenagers don't understand the importance of giving back to their community. The remedy suggested for this is that the Pleasantville School Board should introduce 40 hours of community service as a requirement for high school graduation. If we closely inspect the situation though, we find that there might be many other reasons behind declining number of teenage volunteers.
They have made an assumption that the population and its age distribution has remained consistent with that of previous years. No supportive proof for such assumption is given and thus it is totally possible that either the overall population of Pleasantville is decreasing or their age distribution has changed in a way which shows decline in number of teenagers residing there. This can easily account for decline in number of teenage volunteers since there just aren't as many teenagers present around as there were before.
The second major loop-hole in the presented idea is that the number of worthy charities might have declined. This in turn discourages teenagers to provide their services since no-one wants to work for some organization whose charitable credibility is itself in question. It is also possible that this whole inclusion of 40 hours of community service as graduation requirement is a conspiracy between those non-credible charities and Pleasantville School Board where Pleasantville School Board receives monetary benefits from said charities for aiding them in getting free work-force.
There are many other factors such as decline in advertisement for volunteer positions, increased difficulty of studies (which would in turn leave teenagers with less free time) which can be considered. But to just say that teenagers don't understand the importance of giving back to their society because they aren't getting as many teenage volunteers is not judicious to the young people.