reading

This This
1st article "In studies of kinship it has been said that pets are substitutes for children, providing emotional satisfaction."-Probably this may show only the decline of the family as a social institute. But still in some families animals play an important role and even may be considered to be member of the family. But "Sociology can be defined as a study of human behaviour or a study of people's interactions" (Source:http://nast-is-nast.blogspot.com/") so in my humble opinion there's no point in dealing with animals behaving like humans.
2nd article

"WQ5b: In your own words, please explain what the goth scene is all about.

43 (male): Having the absolute freedom to dress as you want and to express yourself as you want."---->>>>


A culture and form of ground breaking music and self expression...is it goth?

or maybe it is hip hop?

"WQ5b: In your own words, please explain what is the goth scene is all about.

109 (female): Being different to all the mindless, brain-dead clones that walk around small town England."

In my opinion the last frase should written as "Being different to all the mindless, brain-dead clones that walk around small town England,organising our own club of
the mindless, brain-dead clones of Dracula doing nothing to change the reality except depressing everyone around and scaring children".

Now more objective comments)
I think that this article shows us that existance of Goth(and any other) subculture is not only inevitable but probably indispensable phenomenon because all these subcultures only supplement the entire culture of the nation. All subcultures are aimed to make people feel free of choosing at least something)But being "loyal" to one subculture in fact means refusing all other views what leads to "narrowing" of thinking.

3rd article
as there is only a part of the article i can't say much about it. but still it's obvious that younger generations appear to be more materialistic and therefore more...ermm...consumeralistic:D...That happens because of many things:in Russia for example one of the possible reasons for that is breakdown of the socialistic sytem and the shock theraphy that changed people' minds completely.Another reason for that may be increased competition and improvements in technology:our parents simply didn't have that much to choose from(sorry for poor english)).