Teen Challenges: Sleep Deprivation

School is becoming more and more of a challenge for students, but not because the content is getting harder, but because it is becoming harder and harder to stay awake. Students are not getting enough sleep to during the school week and it is becoming seriously unhealthy. In the article written by the Chicago Tribune, “It’s back to class, and less sleep, for many high schoolers,” they write, “The group, made up of doctors who treat children and young adults, called students’ lack of sleep ‘a national public health crisis.’” Student’s sleep and well-being are cognate. With their lack of sleep during the school week it has affected their overall health and well-being, which takes away from their learning experience. Another big part of not getting enough sleep is the fact that the kids become cranky, which makes them out to be degenerates. The article, “Getting Enough Sleep is No Easy Task for Today’s Students,” written by Alina Saminsky, states, “After puberty, the body’s internal clock changes so that it is difficult for teens to fall asleep before 11pm.” The school day normally starts at eight in the morning, which means that students would need to wake up at about seven in the morning to get to school on time. This means that if students went to bed at eleven at night they would be getting roughly eight hours of sleep, which still does not meet a healthy amount of sleep for a teen, which is nine hours of sleep. That scenario is assuming they went to bed around eleven; some students are forced to stay awake past eleven because of work or their over abundance of homework. 

In the article, “It’s back to class, and less sleep, for many high schoolers,” the Chicago Tribune writes, “‘The 10-year-old who went to bed at 9 p.m. becomes the 13-year-old who can’t get to sleep until 11,’ Owens said.” You would think that a child who was used to falling asleep early in their childhood would continue being able to fall asleep early, later in their lives. This is not the case though, When children are nascent, their bodies  to get tired later, and it becomes hard for them to fall asleep passed a certain time. In the article, “Getting Enough Sleep is No Easy Task for Today’s Students,” written by Alina Saminsky, she states, “The major reason seems to be bus schedules and after-school activities. Schools are worried that they will have to buy new busses or spend money in other ways.” I personally believe this to be feign and fictive because I cannot think of a reason that schools would need to spend more money to push the school day back by about an hour. The schools would only be delaying everything, not making it longer.

Personally I have a hard time staying awake in school, due to the fact that I have a really hard time going to bed at a decent time, as I work and have two AP classes. I usually fall asleep around 11 to 12 o’clock at night and wake wake up at 6 in the morning because I have to get ready and drive to school, which is 30 minutes from my house. I have roughly six hours of sleep each day, and it sometimes engenders really bad headaches. I think that we should move the school day back by at least an hour, even if there are hidden costs in doing so. The school system is supposed to be about the well being of the children and if we are not well rested, then we are not in good health.

Image result for sleeping children

 

It’s back to class, and less sleep, for many high schoolers

Getting Enough Sleep is No Easy Task for Today’s Students

Fake News: Lies, Lies and More Lies

With recent developments in the presidential election and social media outlets, “Fake News” has become a new popular form of writing. This form of writing is written to sound true and draw the audience into reading it, but little does the audience know, the article is not true and only published to incite the readers and produce revenue. In the article, “2016 Lie of the Year: Fake news,” written by Angie Drobnic Holan, she states, “Creators of fake news found that they could capture so much interest that they could make money off fake news through automated advertising that rewards high traffic to their sites.” The fake news that you read is written to be turbulent, and make the authors a lot of money for your views. Fake news has made it’s big premier in the 2016 presidential election with Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. In the article, “Fake news author is fired; apologizes to those ‘disappointed’ by his actions,” written by Joe Marusak, Cam Harris, a recent Davidson College grad and Republican intern, states, “‘Fake news flourished during this election cycle because it served the purpose of reinforcing these biases, and it occurred on both sides,’” Harris continued, “’It catered to predispositions that Americans already held, and while fake news has been widely discussed, the dynamics behind it have largely been ignored.'” This article tells that during the election, both sides of the election were using this “Fake News” to benefit their campaigns. They each attempted to validate the fake news with turbid statements and make the population sway to their side of the argument.

Fake news often uses numbers and statistics to interest their readers and draw them into reading their articles. An example of this is shown in the article written by Angie Drobnic Holan, “2016 Lie of the Year: Fake news,” where she gives the example of fake news, “‘Thousands of people at a Donald Trump rally in Manhattan chanted, “We hate Muslims, we hate blacks, we want our great country back.'” This article title was used to perturb the readers and sway readers against Trump and  his vast amount of supporters. Lots of the fake news article have been displayed using social media outlets like Snapchat, Facebook and Twitter. Another thing that the article, “2016 Lie of the Year: Fake news,” states is, “With 1.79 billion people around the world using Facebook each month, Facebook dwarfs other online platforms. Hoping to encourage people to be better informed, Facebook after the 2012 election introduced new tools explicitly aimed at helping users read news and share stories. Ironically, Facebook’s technology and good intentions fueled the rise of fake news in 2016.” This is a huge problem because with roughly 1.79 billion people looking at just Facebook, not even what is seen on other platforms like Snapchat and Twitter, people are spreading the fake news they read to their web of friends and family, further expanding the number of people receiving this fake news.

Image result for Facebook on fake news

Personally, I have fallen victim to reading fake news on the internet, and not realizing that the news is in fact fake. I have read articles from Buzzfeed many times on Snapchat and thought they were true, but later came to realize that they were fake. I have now been hyper aware of what I read on the internet, and try to assay the articles by looking at many other known to be credible sources. Even though an article may seem cogent, make sure that it is credible first before you believe what you have just read. I would encourage that you read articles thoroughly, and check in with the other major news outlets before sharing what you read with everyone else. If you don’t, you could be spreading fake news throughout the world.

The very real consequences of fake news stories and why your brain can’t ignore them

2016 Lie of the Year: Fake news

Fake news author is fired; apologizes to those ‘disappointed’ by his actions

Facebook now flags and down-ranks fake news with help from outside fact checkers

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