Burnout

BURNOUT BACKFIRES

Students feel unmotived and fall behind on assignments

Article by Taylor Gri th Graphic by Andrew Edwards

A typical school day for junior So a Malik involves taking multiple AP, honors and regular classes. After school, she trudges through the seemingly insurmountable amount of homework and begins to feel burnt out and unmotivated to keep up with all her classes.

“[Burnout] happens pretty much every year, especially at Trinity since everyone really seeks that academic validation,” Malik said.

However, Malik’s story is not unique to Trinity as this is a reality for students across the United States.

According to news According to news outlet e Optimist, 71 percent of college students in April 2021 su ered from burnout. Being burned out is described as a state of menscribed as a state of mental exhaustion in which tal exhaustion in which students are unable to students are unable to maintain school without maintain school without the chance to relax. Althe chance to relax. Although it’s very common though it’s very common in college to feel burned in college to feel burned out, it is also something out, it is also something that can start in middle and high school.

“When you start to notice a change in habits, or you start to notice that they don’t have the same energy level or maybe the same inor maybe the same interest in doing activities terest in doing activities that they used to,” Guidance that they used to,” Guidance Counselor Ryan said. “ at’s when you Counselor Ryan said. “ at’s when you want to kind of investigate and see what’s gowant to kind of investigate and see what’s going on.”

Students become overextended when they don’t have enough time for themselves, meaning there isn’t time for the simple things, such as having a family dinner or reading a book. is can happen due to always thinking about what needs to be done.

One of several causes for burnout is procrastination. When students leave work until the last minute, they can become unmotivated to tackle their mounting assignments and instead feel burned out.

“Sometimes we forget that taking care of ourselves is critical,” Smith said.

Students can identify whether they’re not doing something that they should be such as: overextending, lack of self-care or bad time management.

“ e next step would be talking to someone that you trust, who can help them gure

out some options that out some options that might be a better might be a better t,” Smith said.

As students progress through high school, burnout often manifests itself as senioritis in which students skip school due to the lack of motivation. According to a recent study by news outlet Omniscient, 78 percent of all high school seniors experience senioritis nationally. While the symptoms of senioritis and burnout are similar, burnout can happen at any age while senioritis is unique to students at the end of their high school careers.

According to an NYU study, senioritis can cause immediate harm and in uence a student’s future including causing a decline in grades, not getting enough sleep, and hurting mental or physical health.

Whether it’s senioritis or general burnout, there are various ways to stay consistent in classes throughout the entire school year. Malik uses a to-do list. She also sets up goals for herself in order to ful ll the things that need to be done. Eighth grader Campbell Alch uses the same method to stay productive. “I de nitely try to make to-do lists to stay organized,” Alch said. According to the American Psychological Association, parents who are involved in their child’s academic life provide a more positive environment that can help the student have more success. “My parents help me to keep on top of things, if it seems like I’m not really doing my work, they will help me get back on track,” Alch said.

Parents are a big factor in whether students succeed or become consumed by burnout.

“But the reality is very few of us have it all together,” Smith said. “We all have our breaking points. And just because we don’t let people see our breaking points doesn’t mean we don’t have them.” school year. if it seems like I’m not really doing my work, they will help me get back on track,” Alch said.

Parents are a big factor in whether students

WIRED IN, CHECKED OUT OUT

Overstimulation and how it a ects students

Article by Karthik Stead Graphic by Lia Garibay

When ARPANET (now known as the internet) was launched in 1969, no one could have predicted the massive eff ects it would have on the human race as a whole. Over 50 years later, the internet has become an integral part of our day-to-day lives. With the world’s library of information at the touch of a button, the idea of splitting attention and multitasking has become quite popular.

Overstimulation is also becoming a larger problem. Overstimulation is defi ned as an excessive amount of physical or psychological stimulus, and with roughly 2.5 quintillion bytes of data uploaded to the internet each day, overstimulation seems to be more of an inevitability than a possibility.

“You all live in a digital world where you're used to getting fi ve things at once,” Guidance Counselor Rylan Smith said. “So I think between the phone and the computer and whatever other devices you have, it [all] comes at you quick.”

Pew Research Center reports that 54% of teens surveyed say it would be hard to give up social media. e addictive nature and instant gratifi cation of platforms such as Instagram and TikTok are shown to reduce attention spans. ese platforms are designed to keep the user on the app as much as possible, in order to increase the amount of advertisements seen by the user. In order to do this, these platforms off er massive swaths of content, which can lead to overstimulation.

Pew Research Center also reports that 46% of teens say they use the internet almost constantly, a 22% increase from their last survey in 2014. To put this in perspective, there are about 1.3 billion adolescents in the world today. at means that an estimated 598 million teens use the internet “almost constantly”. ese numbers, while staggering, do require additional context. To be specifi c, part of that time could be spent viewing educational resources online or doing online homework assignments. It is also important to keep in mind that these numbers are not to be used as concrete facts, but rather as tools for estimation.

Overstimulation is not the only negative aspect of frequent online usage, as studies have shown that multitasking has become more popular in recent years.

“I think [that] social media, and some of these other resources have given us the false idea that we can multitask,” Smith said.

Research from e American Journal of Pharmaceutical Education supports this idea that multitasking is generally unproductive, fi nding that the students in the study who were multitasking performed the given tasks slower than those who were not multitasking. is is further backed up by research conducted in 2018 which showed that students who frequently multitask tend to have lower college GPAs. Multitasking appears to be a response to the amount of overstimulation provided by the internet.

Overexposure to the internet in humans is a phenomenon that has not been fully explored, however preliminary research using mice does provide a look into the eff ects of overstimulation. A 2012 study published in Nature found that overstimulated mice are generally worse at recognizing new objects. Furthermore, a study published in Physiology and Behavior found that audiovisual overstimulation in childhood led to hyperactivity in adult mice. is data should be taken with a grain of salt, but it does seem to indicate that overexposure to the internet does have harmful eff ects on the brain.

Ultimately, the internet is becoming a larger presence in the world as a whole. As it becomes a consistent factor in our lives, research shows that it is generally benefi cial to unplug whenever possible.