The evils of Social Studies

I know that a lot of students don't really think that Social Studies is a real subject. In fact, my Social Studies curriculum course last year featured a whole week of trying to convince us that Social Studies was a valid, real course. This was convincing people who had paid to become teachers and take the course - preaching to the choir? Not really. Most of the people in Social Studies were wanting to be some other flavour of teahcer: English, Languages, History, Geography, Economics, PE etc. There was a requirement to study 2 curriculum areas, so a lot of people ended up in Social Studies as a default option.
I was not aware of the full effect of Social Studies until I read an essay from a student on the importance of Role Models for students. He mentioned that times were tough, and that teens needed people to look up to. As an example, he wrote the following:

"Due to Social Studies, increasing numbers of teens are abusing alcohol, drugs, and getting depressed..."

And learning about Social Decision Making and Inquiry processes too I suppose ;)