Month: February 2023

Social media has created a toxic environment that many people now experience, especially teenagers. This not only causes us to be on our phones 24/7 but also affects our social interactive skills and our mental health. Social media has created unhealthy standards that affect our ways of living. 

One way social media affects us is by creating bad habits. Influencers only post the good moments of their lives, and that is the only part that we view. We see them going on trips, hanging out with friends, buying expensive things, etc. 

This affects our mentality because we start to think that their lives are perfect and we then compare ours to theirs. We don’t appreciate what we have in front of us because we are too consumed in what others are doing with their lives. 

Influencers and celebrities only post the good and never the bad. We think, “Why isn’t my life as perfect as theirs?” Social media tricks us into thinking that an influencer’s life is always great and that they don’t have bad days. 

Social media also causes a lot of people to have issues with their body image. Influencers post unrealistic photos of their bodies and face, and the algorithms push that content.

A lot of teenagers suffer with their image because of high social media standards. Social media causes you to think that you need to look a certain way. For example, you either need to be really skinny and tall or you need to have an hourglass figure to be beautiful. The use of filters also creates these issues because they change your appearance and it makes you become insecure with yourself that you feel that you need to use a filter. 

A lot of people don’t fit those specific categories and start to hate their looks. They want to look a certain way and change something about themselves because they don’t think they’re good enough. This causes a lot of people to become depressed and be unhappy with themselves.

Social media also affects our interactive skills and how we socialize. Whenever we are bored we go on social media because what we see on it entertains us. The problem with this is that a lot of what we see on it is fake and it makes us waste a lot of time on it. Social media takes out time away from living in the moment and being with people who make us feel happy.

I see a lot of people who are hanging out with their friends, but everyone is still on their phones. They are each looking at something different. Yes, you are with your friends but no one is having true interaction. No one is actually talking about their life, but instead about what they saw on social media. 

They are distracted from these moments like doing something fun or catching up on their lives. Instead, they are wasting their time on something that they saw online which is most likely fake. 

Social media is unhealthy and creates toxic standards that then affect our mental health, our stress, our anxiety, and how we live our life. We worry too much about what we see on social media or what people say. We worry about how we portray our life on social media and what people will think of us. Social media should not be what we spend our lives worrying about.

During second period on Friday, February 3rd, ASB’s morning announcements rang through each classroom bringing bad news to all students without perfect attendance habits. This article will provide McClatchy student body opinions as well as my personal perspective.

Teachers were instructed to read our school’s new late policy to the class, spurring groans and frustrated comments from unsupportive students. This policy tells that any student that cannot make it inside the school building before the 8:30 morning bell is no longer allowed to enter through the main building, and must instead walk to the auditorium to get a late pass.

At the auditorium, students have to share their name, grade level, and reason for tardiness to a staff member before they’re allowed to enter the school and find their first period class. Hundreds of students are late to school every day so it is expected that the line for late passes will be hefty.

In addition to this, if you are tardy more than once in a week, school administration will contact your parents to “offer interventions and advise on potential consequences.” Further tardies call for after-school detention and possible placement on an attendance contract.

In previous years, students were granted a 5 minute grace period when arriving late to first period. Now, if students make it to school even a minute after the bell rings, they must instead detour, and in turn, be much later to class.

On the first day of this new policy, students reported having to wait 20+ minutes in a line of over 80 people. Most of these students would have been 5-7 mins late if they were able to enter the school.

Personally, I don’t think this policy will last more than a month. The collective student attitude towards frustration and annoyance. And what good does it accomplish? Students being 4x later than before the policy. If I arrived at 8:31 and had to wait in that line, I’d turn around and skip.