Procrastination Exacerbation

An important part of a high schooler’s life is balancing school, extracurriculars, and free time. Over the course of high school, the workload increases from year to year, especially in junior and senior year as students enter the IB diploma program. As most of the juniors and seniors at AISG are taking the IB diploma, managing time efficiently is essential for the majority of students to allow for adequate downtime.

Despite knowing about this increase in workload, students still struggle with procrastination, causing many to attempt to cram right before deadlines. Downtime is important because it allows students to destress, socialize, and pursue interests outside of school.

Many people might be curious about how much downtime students at AISG have, and what they do during that time. We made a survey to find out what students like to spend their free time on and see if grade levels also play a role in their decision-making process.

From the data collected, we can see that many students from all grade levels enjoy reading, spending time with their family, doing physical activities and listening to music. These are all very wholesome and beneficial habits since they are good for students both mentally and physically.

The other two activities that were highly ranked by students are socializing on social media, as well as watching YouTube videos. Although these activities can make us relax, they can quickly become addictive. Keeping your use down to just 30 minutes a day can lead to better mental health outcomes, according to research being published in December in the Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology. For more information, click here.

Seniors are most likely to have the highest stress level among all four grade levels. As seniors gets closer to college, they bear a large work load unprecedented in their life including IB assessments, extracurricular work, and college application.

To look into the specific situations of some students, we conducted interviews with a couple of students.

Maya T., a junior, responded that she has to worry about her EE, CAS, SAT, and colleges along with schoolwork while having 7 hours of extracurriculars each week. With all this, Maya has 3-4 hours of down time during the weekends.

Rachel M., a senior, is in her second year of the IB diploma and claims to be a heavy procrastinator, causing her to be very stressed. As the APAC dance captain, she has lots of responsibilities and its difficult for her to keep things organized and in control. Rachel says she has the mindset of fun first and work second. During her downtime, she likes to sleep, watch TV, listen to music, and eat good food. 

These activities are common among many students at AISG; however, in a time when teens spend an average of nine hours a day online, according to Common Sense Media, it is important to detach and spend a bit of time doing other things. Reading a book, spending time with our families, and spending time outside are just a few ways we could spend our downtime as students. Not only do we feel more productive doing these things instead of watching videos for hours on end, but they are also good for us.

A report in 2018 revealed that exposure to nature such as forests, gardens, or oceans reduces the risk of diabetes, cardiovascular disease, stress, high blood pressure, and increases sleep duration. A separate study demonstrated that reading improves our memory, decreases stress, helps with depression, and improves brainpower. For more information, click here.

With all these benefits, we should try to incorporate at least a few healthy ways to spend our downtime while still enjoying our favorite TV shows and texting with our friends.