A school of thought holds that teenagers doing community service in their free time should be mandatory as this could have a number of benefits to both the teenagers and the community itself. In my opinion, such policy has both pros and cons and in this essay I am going to give my stance on the matter.
First and foremost, it is the duty of every community members to contribute to its betterment, therefore, teenagers should fulfill their responsibilities to society by partaking in communal work during their free times. Additionally, such community service could be a chance for people in teenage age to expand their social circles and hone their social skills, all of which is very important in this age. Furthermore, given that the majority of time spent by teenagers is aimlessly wandering around the Internet, which was proven to have detrimental effects on the wellbeing of teenagers both in terms of physical and mental, doing community work could impel them to go outside of their houses and satisfy the needs of natural interaction.
Despite the aforementioned benefits, forcibly making teenagers to do community work might be counterproductive. Since forcing anyone to do any work against their will often ends up in unsatisfactory results, teenagers being coerced into doing community service might as well ends be unnecessary, costing time and resources to the communities. Moreover, such mandatory services may take away already precious free time that teenagers have to do other important activities such as doing their homework or spending quality time with their families.
All in all, I would contend that making people in their teenage years doing community work in their free times has both its upside and downside. The upside is that the teenagers would have the opportunities to fulfill their responsibilities to the community and gaining valuable skills or experiences while the downside is that the results might not be sufficient and precious free time could be wasted.