Some teenagers are addicted to packing their schedules with every activity possible. Sports, clubs, friends and academics are all time-consuming for the average teen.
“It’s challenging to keep up with everything else in life like school work and sleep and that’s where I feel that the pressure comes in because we have to continuously be juggling so many things at once,” said junior Jamie Toler who plays varsity softball.
Many teens crowd their schedules to build impressive resumes for college applications, believing they must balance academics, extracurriculars and family life while also retaining their sanity.
“As teenagers, the stigma associated with having ‘no social life’ is often so great that teens are willing to sacrifice such things as sleep in their pursuit of balancing the already demanding aspects of academics along with a social life,’” said senior Danielle Ho.
According to the National Sleep Foundation, a survey evaluating over 1,000 adolescents concluded that high school students get on average seven hours of sleep every night, with seniors sleeping less than six hours. A healthy teen needs nine hours of slumber. Busy time-consuming activities impede students from maintaining personal health.
This refusal of idleness during the teen years often carries over to adulthood.
USA Today released a poll evaluating how people perceive their own “busyness.” Since 1987 and every year thereafter, subjects reported being busier than the prior year. Only eight percent of those interviewed described their schedules as “not very busy.” Women between the ages of 30 and 60 were the busiest on a daily basis. The primary sacrifices to accommodate their “busyness” were sleep, recreation and hobbies.
“I find that I sacrifice sleep to uphold activities. At school, I sometimes feel tired and unmotivated because of the lack of rest I get,” said junior Kaela Fiesta.
“The more activities or clubs I do, the better it’ll look on my college resume. Though it is stressful, it’s just how I deal through the tremendous amount of work that’s given to me,” said sophomore Angie Mara.
