by Sherryll P. Calingasan
While coronavirus disease 2019 has the ability to drastically damage the health and wellness of our students, these couple of practical pandemics have already been ruining their lives secretively as the technological age progresses. Unfortunately, we are often caught unaware with these deadly habits because the society slowly normalizes it. And while we still have time, we need to address these perennial issues that cause unforeseen suffrage to these youth.
When I say pandemic, I am not even pertaining to any contagious virus or illness. It is also far from those diseases that have the ability of spreading rapidly. I am talking about the two negative practices that is somewhat already embedded into our societal attitude and practices as Filipinos. These are the dynamic tandem of improper time management which leads to its duo, the comfortably deadly stream of procrastination. Let us delve deeper about this dynamic duo.
The multitude of learners’ tasks and scholastic activities are usually jam-packed. For this reason, being overwhelmed from these things is quite inevitable. But actually, most of the times, the students themselves are the ones to be blamed for this hideous circumstance of pilled tasks and responsibilities. This is the massive effect of improper time management. The poor and neglectful ability of the students to manage their functioning hours properly can apparently be the main reason why they are stuck on their own misery. They tend to allot too much time on certain things that is not really essential. Example of which are leisures and vices that really bring no good benefits to them like excessive/addictive gaming, extremely long social media usage, and more surprisingly, being engaged onto watching video pornography. In fact according to the statistics, Filipinos spend the longest hours of watching pornographic ocntents in a site named Pornhub among any other nationality in the world. And roughly 30% of these watchers are teenagers.
So aside from the fact that these activities can greatly destruct our health and well-being, it can also drastically affect the remaining time that we can allot upon doing the things that really matter. And in the case of the students, their studies are always the ones that are being left behind.
From this point, procrastination usually enters the scene to make things worse. Students are being urged to delay their time of doing school-related tasks. In return, even if teachers already adjusted on their part, the learners will still suffer because it already got out of hand. This may affect their grades and values. Most importantly, their future will also be at stake. Because of their failing credentials, they might not be able to find decent and stable jobs in the near future.
Considering these notions, although it may seem to be sound cliché, we all need to exert effort in order to end these untold pandemics. During this time of digital and distance learning, multiple distractions caused by technology will be very rampant. So we should strengthen our courses of action to help students be healed from these wounds in our culture. We can be the vaccine and our wisdom and understanding can be the cure versus these untold pandemics.
About the Author:
Sherryll P. Calingasan TIII, is a Secondary Education major in General Science from Philippine Normal University. Master of Arts in Teaching major in Science ( CAR).