How Increased Screen Time is Affecting Students

     Covid-19 has affected the lifestyles of students and teachers with quarantining and online education. Students, although at first probably quite enjoyed being home instead of at school. Now find themselves in discomfort. After a whole day of classes and online courses, people may find that they have aches and pains where they may not have had before. Online school has been stressing the human body. 

     “Since I’ve been spending like 6 hours a day in my chair, I’ve been slouching a lot without even realizing it. So usually my mid to upper back has been tight, and I’ve been needing my mom to use a massage gun on it,” said Sophomore Jordan Stadstad. Your body puts itself under a lot of stress when you relax it past a certain point. 

     According to MSTrust, a National UK charity that works to provide information for anyone affected by multiple sclerosis, education programs. The muscles in your core, lower, and upper back, only work properly if the body is in a good posture. Then poor posture can develop muscle weakness, requiring more energy to move, making the muscles weaker. 

     Simply sitting for a prolonged amount of time can put an incredible amount of stress on the body. It softens the body and weakens the muscles, possibly creating pain in your lower to upper back. Staying physically fit helps the body function more efficiently.

     “While sitting, you’re disengaging muscles in your lower back and core. Think about when you’re typing, you’re bent over, you spend a lot of time in that position. Your body adapts to that. It creates back strain and neck strain,” said PE teacher Don Lien.

     “I think generally staying physically active will extend and improve your quality of life, reduce health problems,” said Sophomore Ben Farrar, a calisthenics and lifting enthusiast. “Having a structure to workout is much more efficient. Because when you don’t, you can come up with an excuse or you get distracted and work on other things.”

     Scheduling a workout doesn’t necessarily mean going to the gym for 45 minutes to an hour. It can be as simple as going out for a walk or doing laps up and down some stairs. As long as your body is moving.

     “We have a class called Lifestyle Fitness which is intended to get people up and moving, not even necessarily about fitness. We’re missing a lot of lifestyle moving.” said Lien, “Because of our position, while we’re typing or working, things that put pressure on your muscles. If you’re just aware of your posture, you can fix it a lot. Or simply engaging your muscles. Lifestyle physical activity is just about having general movement,” 

     Physical exercise can go a long way for the human body. And it’s not just about improving your body, it can be quite the tool for relieving your physical stress and relaxing your body. Being active is entirely about trying to improve your health. This is especially important for people who are under much more stress, such as AP students or maximum-effort classes.

    “I’m 50 years old. And this is stressing me out,” said Lien, “A lot of professionals who came into this workforce wanted hands-on teaching. But now we have a way harder time to connect with our students. And students are even more stressed with 4 classes. Then I even know people who have little ones who are stressed out. And again, physical activity is even more important now because it gives us this feeling of relaxation, exercise can lower your stress levels just like meditation,”