Picture this; Charlotte is cool, popular, pretty. She’s funny, kind and amazing with people. She loves sport and shopping and she’s your classic popular girl. Sophie is a little bit strange, she spends a lot of time completely silent on the outside but animated and noisy within. She loves books and writing fanfiction, she sucks at sport and her fashion sense is a little quirky. In any teen novel, Charlotte is the nasty mean girl who will eventually get her comeuppance and Sophie is the protagonist who will probably fall in love with the popular sporty guy (who is obviously secretly a great guy.) and she’ll become cool and popular and liked by all, leaving behind all her realism.
Pop culture gives us one of two views; the first, that Charlotte is cool and the one we should aspire to be, Sophie is boring and will never amount to anything anyway, and the second that popular girl =bitchy and that Charlotte is shallow and false while Sophie is dorky and relatable. We only get one view never the possibility that both girls are good people and that we can learn from both. Nerdy guys are either our protagonist (such as in “Life in Outer Space” by Melissa Keil) or, (and this is more common), a side character, sometimes shown to be kind and/or smart but never with a love interest or portrayed as attractive.
So why do we do this? Why do we categorize people and disregard evidence that doesn’t fit with the way they’re meant to behave? We have formed stereotypes for thousands of years, it provides an evolutionary advantage in that if we know that a certain type of animal (or person) behaves in a certain way we can be on guard around them. Friendship groups in a school setting are usually quite solid by the age of 11 and while heavy emphasis on “popularity” is most common in middle school and lower high school, most situations in which there are cliques will have some sort of social and popularity hierarchy.
Knowing why we stereotype doesn’t tell us why we associate things like “nerdiness” with being a loser and “popularity” with unkindness, when in reality, some studies have shown it’s not the kids at the top of the pecking order that do most of the bullying, and that many people have identified popular people as being popular because they’re kind and good with people. We also seem to have this idea in our heads that you can belong to one group and one group only! Apparently popular people can’t love Doctor Who and write fanfiction, and if you have glasses and love books you are destined to remain at the bottom. I personally know this to be untrue, as of of the most popular girls at my old school secretly loved to geek out over fanfiction with me.
So how can we leave these stereotypes behind? Well, it’s going to be hard to do that entirely. Teenagers are always going to label each other no matter how much we preach. In fact, some people are proud of their labels, proud of having something to connect them to others. But we need to remember that labels are a perception, not a perfect description. No label can Entirely sum up an individual and nor should we expect them to. Labels can be useful, they can be a badge of honor. But a badge shouldn't define a person and neither should any label.
"Why Nerds Are Unpopular." Why Nerds Are Unpopular. N.p., n.d. Web. 16 Nov. 2015. <http://www.paulgraham.com/nerds.html> Kennedy-Moore, Eileen. "Popular Kids." Psychology Today. N.p., n.d. Web. 16 Nov. 2015. <https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/growing-friendships/201312/popular-kids>.
Showing posts with label Teenagers. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Teenagers. Show all posts
Tuesday, December 8, 2015
Social Media's Influence on today's Youth
Eating disorders are becoming the norm in today’s society. Up to 30 million people of all ages and genders in the United States are affected by eating disorders such as anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa and binge eating. Almost 50% of people diagnosed with this illness also fit the criteria for depression. These disorders more commonly affect young girls aged 12 to 25 but is also starting to show more in boys as well.
Eating disorders are illusive to a lot of people. For some, they associate eating disorders with people who are extremely depressed or are looking for attention. This is not the case for most people. Social media is one of the main causes for eating disorders. This drives teenagers to the brink of doing anything to be “pretty”.
“I think that pictures on Tumblr and Instagram with models that have perfect bodies contribute to girls feeling insecure and that tv shows and movies glorify eating disorders and make them seem not as bad as they are.” says grade eight student Isabella Duncan.
For many people the “desirable” type of body they see on social media is just out of reach. Impressionable young girls and boys opening up Instagram on their phones and seeing photos of the good life, photos of flawless people with perfect bodies, perfect jobs and perfect lifestyles, going to amazing places on holiday and look like they're always having fun drives them to trying to be the same. These teens then think to themselves, maybe if I looked like that I would be as happy as them.
After seeing picture after picture teenagers start to detest their bodies and blame themselves. They start to think that maybe if they were just a bit skinnier, or just a bit prettier they would have it all. For many teens with social lives, it is hard to stay on a constant diet when there are so many temptations, and hard to find time to go to the gym regularly. Even if you manage to do all these things it still takes time to progress and lose weight.
“In my friend group, we always complain about how we look and say things that we don't like about our bodies. I think that girls feel like they have put themselves down so they don't seem self centered or arrogant.” says Isabella Duncan.
Eating disorders are not just a “phase” or for attention. Social media has chalked up eating disorders to something they’re not; a passing trend that you use to lose weight and then move on. This is an important issue as it affects the people around you in their everyday lives.
Even though it seems like a scary thought, it is a reality for many people and it is important in today’s society for us to make it a mission to help spread body positivity and make every body type acceptable.
By Francesca Marshall
Sunday, December 6, 2015
The Effects of Using Technoogy
Everyone believes that technology plays a big part in our lives whether we use it to text our loved ones or use it to can be useful in a way but it can also be a major distraction. People like to minimize their daily electronic life to experience the real world and not to be trapped in the social black hole and staring onto a screen. There a lot of great social opportunities and you are going to miss them if you stare down at a screen all day.
Have you ever used your phone so much that you just don’t want to get off it? It is just too hard to let go of it.
- Gertrude Stein
Have you ever used your phone so much that you just don’t want to get off it? It is just too hard to let go of it.
One reason why people should stop using their screens too much is that they will start to act different such as use their phone when they are not supposed to, fellow 8th grade students at UWCSEA says
“I use my phone 2-3 hours a day and sometimes I use my phone when I am in school and it distracts me when I am in class. I use my phone to manage my social accounts.”
Kids create many social media accounts to interact with each other whether it is friends or family. They use their social media in the wrong way as well. There are many types of social websites or such as facebook, instagram, snapchat, etc. If kids have the time they will just take their phones out of their pockets and check their social media. It isn’t bad to check social media but you can manage your time well to social media and not access your social media uncontrollably. Another distraction kids face these days are the games that they download. Kids can’t stop looking at their screens when playing games. When on public transport people, especially kids stand around at the exit staring at their screens. They don’t notice that there are other people around them. They are in their own world. It's not good to see kids in this generation staring at a screen. They could be doing something useful as well. Phones should not be overused as kids are trading their friends and family for a useless screen that is there only to waste your time and to entertain and make your life fun. But all a phone does is make you pay for it and phones take up most of your day.
“The internet is so big, powerful and pointless that for some people it is a complete substitute for life.”- Andrew Brown
What Andrew Brown is trying to convey in the quote, some kids use their phones like it is their life. All kids need to manage their time on their social media accounts and not to spend ridiculous amounts of time looking at a screen. There won’t be any problem if they manage time well. Spending about 30 minutes to and 1 hour is a reasonable time that a child should spend using their phone on a daily basis. A rising problem kids are facing is that their phones are keeping them awake at night.
A 8th grade student has unveiled that their phone keeps them awake at night until 1 in the morning almost everyday.
Using your phone at late hours will cause you to get less sleep and that might cause drowsiness the next day and you will start to have behavioural problems. Changing how much time you use on your phones will be helpful but using your phone for excessive amounts of time will cause to be different and trapped in your own world.
Using your phone at the wrong time is not correct, you should use your phones when you are free and not doing anything. Using your phones during school, no matter how much your phone distracts you. Even Though you would just take your phone out of your pocket if you are bored. It may seem okay to do that but in reality it is not correct. You can do something more useful rather than procrastinate on your phone.
“Everybody gets so much information all day long that they lose their common sense.”
“I use my phone 2-3 hours a day and sometimes I use my phone when I am in school and it distracts me when I am in class. I use my phone to manage my social accounts.”
Kids create many social media accounts to interact with each other whether it is friends or family. They use their social media in the wrong way as well. There are many types of social websites or such as facebook, instagram, snapchat, etc. If kids have the time they will just take their phones out of their pockets and check their social media. It isn’t bad to check social media but you can manage your time well to social media and not access your social media uncontrollably. Another distraction kids face these days are the games that they download. Kids can’t stop looking at their screens when playing games. When on public transport people, especially kids stand around at the exit staring at their screens. They don’t notice that there are other people around them. They are in their own world. It's not good to see kids in this generation staring at a screen. They could be doing something useful as well. Phones should not be overused as kids are trading their friends and family for a useless screen that is there only to waste your time and to entertain and make your life fun. But all a phone does is make you pay for it and phones take up most of your day.
“The internet is so big, powerful and pointless that for some people it is a complete substitute for life.”- Andrew Brown
What Andrew Brown is trying to convey in the quote, some kids use their phones like it is their life. All kids need to manage their time on their social media accounts and not to spend ridiculous amounts of time looking at a screen. There won’t be any problem if they manage time well. Spending about 30 minutes to and 1 hour is a reasonable time that a child should spend using their phone on a daily basis. A rising problem kids are facing is that their phones are keeping them awake at night.
A 8th grade student has unveiled that their phone keeps them awake at night until 1 in the morning almost everyday.
Using your phone at late hours will cause you to get less sleep and that might cause drowsiness the next day and you will start to have behavioural problems. Changing how much time you use on your phones will be helpful but using your phone for excessive amounts of time will cause to be different and trapped in your own world.
Using your phone at the wrong time is not correct, you should use your phones when you are free and not doing anything. Using your phones during school, no matter how much your phone distracts you. Even Though you would just take your phone out of your pocket if you are bored. It may seem okay to do that but in reality it is not correct. You can do something more useful rather than procrastinate on your phone.
“Everybody gets so much information all day long that they lose their common sense.”
- Gertrude Stein
Gertrude Stein has revealed that children will start to have social and behavioural problems whether it could be at school. Some children get separation anxiety when separated from their phone showing a different attitude without their phones. Teenagers need to learn that there is a lot more things in this world rather than a magical screen. In reality children are stuck on a phone. What children need to understand is that we should look up sometimes at the real world and not at a screen that tells us what is going in the world.
By: Adhvay Krishnan :)
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