There are a lot of things that you depend on that aren't "user-visible" and require what you call "programming for the sake of programming." In fact, I'd go so far as to say it's good that some of us love that stuff, otherwise there would be no one to write and/or fix the fancy language features, libraries, and embedded systems young whippersnappers like you depend on.

By the way, I'm actually fairly young myself (23), but I've always loved the down and dirty, close-to-the-metal details of programming. And I also have the soul of a 50 year old (a la: "I need a lawn so I can yell at kids to stay off it." http://xkcd.com/479/).