Procrastination is a part of the daily life of a teenager, but why is that? Why is it that even if there’s a due date right before us, we still push it until the last possible second?
We do this to ward off long-term stress with the short-term buffer of fun that procrastination provides. It might even be the mindset that it’s better not to try at something than fail at it, so the task is pushed off an indefinite amount of time.
“Procrastination isn’t a personality flaw or a time-management issue,” said Psychology Today psychologist Alisa Crossfield. “It’s a way of coping with challenging emotions and negative moods induced by certain tasks — boredom, anxiety, insecurity, frustration, resentment, self-doubt, and more.”
Something else that contributes to this is our cell phones. I love my phone just as much as the next girl, but it is too often that I get a notification on my phone and end up doom-scrolling on Instagram for hours on end. By the time I remembered that my homework was due, I had only two hours until the midnight deadline.
“My phone is always right there and so easy to access, and it makes it much harder to get things done,” said Norwin freshman Samantha Fasciano, a student who took the poll. “Ten minutes of a break can easily turn into an hour, and I hardly notice. I sit down with every intention of getting this assignment done, but then my phone is there, and suddenly the assignment can wait until tomorrow.”
Social media provides an outlet that distracts from the mundane of everyday life and helps temporarily wash away the stress of everyday life. Teens dive into social media to focus on a life that isn’t theirs, so that they do not have to think about their own. Another factor to consider is that a lot of teens use their phones to chat with friends and they don’t want to lose that time on homework. As much as technology creates distance between us, it also makes it easier to close that gap in distance that separates people physically that many people take advantage of.
“It’s not getting off Apps it’s that I can’t just not talk to people,” said sophomore Angelina Moyer.
Another facet mentioned earlier, is midnight deadlines. If you have until 11:59 pm to do something, it makes it much easier to convince yourself that you can just do it later because it’s not due next class period. However, on the flip side, online due dates can give a more rigid structure for when things have to be done as there is a specific time we have to get things in by. You cannot just leave your work until the period before it’s due when online due dates are employed.
“Online due dates can kind of go either way,” said junior Mackenzie Schock. “Sometimes the due dates make me do an assignment by the end of the night rather than before a class. This could give me more time if it essentially gives me an extra half-day to do the work, but it could also make sure that I have to finish my work by the end of the day that the work is assigned.”
To this effect, there are ways that you can use procrastination to do your work! According to a Norwin poll for the Knight Krier, 48 percent of polled Norwin high schoolers say that they do their assignments in order of interest. Doing things in order of interest makes it so that work will still get done, but at a pace more enjoyable to the student doing it. You could do your least favorite parts of homework first to get it out of your way, or save it for last so you don’t have to deal with it as soon. However, the former would be a more plausible solution more often than not.
“Teens seem to be pulled in so many directions at one time,” said AP US history teacher Eric Bartels. “There are clubs to participate in, sports to play, jobs to work, and so many rigorous course loads to manage. It wasn’t until my own sons became high school students that I could see the time crunch firsthand.”
