Harit's Position Paper on Video Games

It’s 11 pm, on a school night, but Thomas doesn’t care, why would he? He is moments away from slaughtering the beast that is Elvarg, the demonic boss in the MMORPG Runescape. He can barely hear his mum, screeching at him to go to bed, but as Richard climbs down the volcano, into the dragon’s lair, he’s in a world of his own, and nothing can stop him, not even the unfinished math homework, lying beside his bed, forgotten. You might be facing a similar predicament, your child is stuck to their computer, playing the latest virtual role playing game or first-person shooter but no matter how hard you try, it’s like there is industrial grade super glue between your child and their console. But today, I’m going to shed light on how video games are perilous for kids and how you can melt that super glue between your youngster and their electronic device.

As stated earlier, it is clearly obvious that video games can be hazardous towards kids, whether it’s distracting them from remaining focussed on certain tasks or making them more aggressive, one such negative aspect of playing violent games extensively is that your child can be subjected to sexual harassment or insult other’s sexually themselves. And this harassment can greatly affect teens who play games. A 2013 study from Ohio University showed that when a female player in Halo 3 greeted other players with an innocuous phrase like “Hi Everyone”, she faced insults like “Shut up you whore!” Consequently, a rallying cry of “alright team let’s do this” earned her the response, “Shut up you slut.” Furthermore, this type of harassment not only exists in Halo 3; there are countless other games where I myself have seen teens torment fellow gamers with extremely vulgar language. For example, Call of Duty games allow teammates to communicate with each other so that they have a better chance to win the game. Some may say that this actually helps adolescents to collaborate and convey their thoughts to others which is a really important skill for any human being to learn, but in actuality, group chats like these are in the end mostly used to tyrannise other teammates. Take Jenny Haniver for instance, who is an avid Call of Duty player. She uses her free time after college classes to play Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3. But how can someone enjoy a game when they’re repeatedly faced with negative comments such as "Get back in the kitchen and take your goddamn hands off a video game controller." Another especially revolting memory of Jenny’s was when an enemy player backed out of the middle of the match just to send Jenny a voice message about how he hoped she would be raped and she and her family killed. Amazingly, situations like these aren’t uncommon at all. Fatuglyorslutty.com is a website that depicts hundreds of similar horrendous messages from video gamers online. You can go check out the website yourself and you too will be revolted by the posts you witness. But all in all, it is obvious that sexual harassment in video games is an enormous crisis that needs to be fixed.

Another imminent problem due to addictive gaming is the low level of school achievement that correlates to it. According to one study done on 1500 American adolescents, aged 10 to 19, teens who played video games compared to teens who didn’t, spent 32% less time doing homework and other education related activities (Cummings & Vandewater 2007). From this study, it is indisputable that there is a strong correlation between addictive gaming and neglect of school responsibilities. This result is most probably due to students getting used to the fast pace of violent games and consequently, when they try and focus on slow paced activities like reading and homework, they are unable to concentrate on them due to their addiction. Another explanation for the correlation could simply because of a student’s addiction’s. Once they put down the game, reality literally slaps them in the face and they don't feel like doing anything but delving into more games, I’m sure many of your son’s or daughter’s have experienced. On the contrary, it could be reasonably contended that video games are in fact helpful to students as they can be a major stress reliever. However, even if video games are a major stress reliever for them, students who play them can lose track of their sense of time easily due to their addiction as video games are like a sponge except instead of water, they suck up time, time that could’ve been used for more useful and urgent things.

The final problem I want to address to you parents today is that video games can cause your teenagers to make unreasonable choices just to feed their addiction. For instance, take a look at Guy Martin’s article, “High-Jinks: Shoot Out”. It elucidates the game ,“Killer”, which is the “last-man-standing game of water-pistol ambush(Martin, 1)”, has become an important end-of-year ritual in multiple New York City high schools. At St. Ann’s, a private school in Brooklyn Heights, the game is taken tremendously seriously. So seriously, that some competitors bribe cab drivers and stalk other people and camp outside their house just because they wanted a better chance to receive the winner’s jackpot. Furthermore, even though Killer isn’t a video game, the same moral can be taken from it and applied to popular first person shooters or role playing games. I’m sure that many of your children have made imbecilic choices just to feed their addiction of video games, heck, I actually know people in 8JRa that have lied to their parents about money and thrown it away on video games solely for getting an “achievement” or a legendary champion skin. And if you realise how grave this situation is, I’m talking about one of your sons or daughters who’s in this room right now! And don’t give me any rubbish on how spending on video games help adolescents boost their cognitive skills because there’s no benefit in playing video games to increase analysing and reaction skills if the teens who play them are stealing from their parents, lying about money and in all, making stupid choices!

Now, how can you fix this? I’m sure you all agree that there’s no point in me informing you of these problem’s if I’m not telling you how you can fix them. For a start, You can try to find alternative activities that compliment your child’s personality and his interests. In addition you can set a limit on how much time your child can spend on electronics per day. Many health care professionals and development specialists recommend that the time children spend in front of a television or computer screen be no more than 2 hours per day so take this into account when setting a time for them. In addition, I propose to you that you set up your child’s video game system in a family room where your child is always supervised when playing their video game so that you can make sure that your teenager doesn’t exceed their time limit. Finally, I suggest you all to familiarise yourself with the warning signs of video game addiction in children, these include noticing your child sneaking in extra playing time after the time limit or that he is lying to you about playing when he is not supposed to as therefore, you can tell if your child is getting addicted and contact a health care professional if you notice any troublesome symptoms as we can all agree, excessive video gaming is harmful for kids.

Thank you for your time.

By Harit

Life Saving Devices Not Being Worn

Students sprinting to the bus, after hearing the deafening buzz of the school bell in the hope of getting the desirable back seats. Once the students are all sat, the bus aunty comes through the aisle and suddenly, some students rush to put on their seatbelts while others need a reminder. But when there is no bus aunty spying on them, the seat belts become unbuckled and unclicked.

“There are many reasons why many people don’t wear seatbelts while riding,” says Rodney Mesriani, founder of the Mesriani Law Group which specializes in personal injury, employment and labor, social security and disability law. “First of all, drivers and passengers think that wearing a seatbelt is not that important, especially when driving in short distances or when the traffic is visibly light. Also, they tend to forget to wear them, especially when they are on the rush. Another reason why people don’t wear seatbelts is because wearing a seatbelt for them is very uncomfortable as it is too tight and wrinkles their clothes. But the reason why most teens don’t wear their seatbelt is because they say it’s not a “cool” thing to do.”

A recent survey of UWCSEA school bus, A31 shows that 9 out of 10 middle and high school students do not wear their seatbelts while on the bus. “I didn’t wear my seatbelt because I feel there is already the handrest protecting me from falling onto the floor and I’m not going to bang my head on the seat in front of me as I’m leaning back.” says Adhvay Krishnan, a 7th grade busrider. “Also, it makes my neck feel uncomfortable and I’ve heard that buses are designed so that seatbelts are unnecessary.” But when explained to him that even though buses were designed so that seatbelts aren’t needed, many students seriously injure themselves because of not wearing seatbelts. Responding to this, Adhvay says, “You know what another problem is? Half of these seatbelts don’t even work, see?” showing his broken seat belt.

Perhaps the people who are responsible for students not wearing seat belts may not necessarily be the students themselves but the transport department of UWCSEA allowing school buses with broken seat belts to transport students. For the immediate future, UWCSEA can start to check the school buses that are used currently for broken seat belts. Furthermore, students themselves should start to learn the dangers of not wearing their seat belt and make wearing their seat belts a habit. Sahil Parokkaran, a grade 8 students at UWCSEA Dover always wears his seatbelt when in a taxi and a bus says, “I always wear my seatbelt when using the taxi or the school bus as I’ve learnt the hard way. About a year ago, I was riding a cab when it crashed and I hit my head against the seat in front of me as I wasn’t wearing my seatbelt. I could have been seriously injured if the driver was going a little faster.”

If you don’t want to learn to wear your seatbelt the hard way, the next time you travel, make sure your seatbelt is clicked. Simple.

Written by Harit

The Answer To Homework

The buzz of the school bell followed by an intense rush of students sprinting down the hallway and out of the school gates as if someone had pulled the plug under a humongous whirlpool. Most people would think that the craziness and frantic writing of tests would be over after school. But is the enervating part of the day really finished; or is it the start of another evening filled with mountains of monotonous, exhausting homework.

According to technology.com, homework has its pros and cons. First of all, it can allow families to become closer together as students may ask a sibling or a parent for help, not only does it do this but can also lead to parents unearthing more about their child's school life. Also it can help students become more principled as it takes a lot of responsibility to remember to turn in your homework and finish projects by certain deadlines.

But homework isn’t exactly the best thing in the world. There are quite a few facts on how doing homework can negatively affect your lifestyle. For example, if a student is given too much homework, he might be extremely stressed out and won’t have enough time to spend with their families, friends etc. Furthermore, too much homework can encourage students to cheat on assignments as students end up copying from one another to finish homework. What’s the point of doing homework if you’re not learning anything? So the main question is, are grade 8 UWCSEA East students currently doing too little or too much homework in order to lead a balanced lifestyle.

According to the students of grade 8 class, 8JRa, more than 50% of students do more than 10 hours of homework per week and 78% of students are stressed because of homework. The UWCSEA homework policy states that only 7 hours of homework should be done for a grade 8 student per week so how should this problem be solved. “I do get stressed when I have homework to do, especially when I’m stacked with papers ,” says Youngchan Lee,”But I do admit that I sometimes get distracted while doing homework and because of this, I end up staring at my computer wondering how in the world will I ever finish my math homework.”

Maybe the real answer lies in how students do work these days, is the real problem the constant visiting of that facebook page? Or is it the urge to chat online with someone about the latest tech release. Whatever it is, whether it’s the way that students do homework or the amount of homework teachers give right now, it’s eating away at the lives of students. Something needs to be fixed as currently, students are struggling to cope with the pressure and are being pushed to their breaking points.

Written by Harit 

Mindfulness; The Key To Stress

Has the pressure of school work gotten to you yet? Are your parents setting extremely gargantuan expectations for you? Since the beginning of the UWCSEA 2014/15 grade 8 year, many students agree that the workload in terms of work has significantly increased since grade 7. Most of us know that this is to prepare us for future exams such as IGCSE and IB but although students accept that doing their homework can help them practice a certain skill, some students are toiling to cope with the pressure.

One such example is the homework that needs to be done in English. Everyday after school, students are supposed to read and write for 10 minutes, even though it seems like an easy task, several students are reluctantly following the 10/10 rule as it is called. Kunal Daga from 8JRa says, “I find the 10/10 rule a little boring, especially the writing part. I know that the rule can help me and my learning but sometimes I find myself looking at the clock and beseeching for 10 minutes to be over.”

The teachers understand that most of us are under an abundance of pressure and because of this, the subject Life Skills mainly focuses on Mindfulness this year and how to handle the stress we are under. Multitudinous people like how Life Skills has changed from last year when it was about topics that we had already learned about. “I really like Life Skills now compared to last year,” says Dylan Tsao, a grade 8 student, ”Especially because it helps me handle the stress that is heaped onto me more easily.”

It seems that because of Life Skills, students are able to push through the school year even when mountains of stress are heaped onto them.

Written By Harit