The Addictive Powers of YouTube by Amanda

The Addictive Powers of YouTube by Amanda - January 2016 Scholarship Essay

As I sit in my chair, staring intently at the page of a textbook that I have been “reading” for the past twenty minutes, a thought crosses my mind. Should I continue to study, or dare I stop and switch to a YouTube video? For quite some time, the answer was easy for me. Of course I will continue studying, I would think, getting a good grade is more important to me than a YouTube video that I can watch any other time. Unfortunately, within the past few months, that answer changed. Instead of carrying on my worthwhile, although tedious, studying, I chose to mentally decide that I did not need to continue. Once the YouTube app or website was opened, it was over for me. I could, and still can, spend hours watching videos, mindlessly travelling from one video to the next. It became such a problem that my grades began to suffer, not particularly in a noticeable way, but I knew. At this point, I knew it was a problem and that when my second semester started, there needed to be a change. My personal New Years’ Resolution for 2016 is to work harder on my homework and studying so that I will not only be able to reflect that on my high school transcript but feel more confident in my abilities.
It may only be fourteen days into the new year but I am already noticing a change within myself. I have not had many assignments or tests in any of my classes as of this point, but I feel as though I have worked harder on these assignments than I did in the past. Setting aside my phone, my access to YouTube, has been much easier this semester. I know that teenagers of my generation, myself included, struggle tremendously with this task because, for us, most of our world is on our phones or the Internet in general. Of course, the Internet is generally an extremely beneficial tool. The average person has access to almost any bit of information that they wish to acquire at the tip of their fingertips, but many abuse it. Sadly, over the past year that became an enormous problem for me, but I know that with some focus and hard work, that can change. Although New Years’ Resolutions are notorious for being discarded within weeks or even days of the new year beginning, I am hopeful that I will be able to break the trend.