Personal approach to bad and good habits / Laura Bouza

These days most teenagers are spoiled and have some unhealthy and bad habits. This may be because of social influence, I mean, everything that people talk about as it was seen on TV, heard from other people, read in newspapers and all the media. They can also get these bad habits from their friends and family; they see people around them doing it, so they should do the same, shouldn’t they?

In my opinion, this rule and thought isn’t a good example to follow. We’re all aware that each day more and more children want to buy the newest game console, computer or any electronic device. At the same time, sports and cultural activities are more and more abandoned. Most teenagers are reducing their hobbies only to surfing the internet and playing computer or video games. To me, it seems a pity, because they are losing the time they could spend with family or friends, or even going to different places such as the cinema, parks, sports centres… There are a lot of enjoyable activities that are being forgotten, for instance, writing or reading, which for me, is the most enriching and fun activity in every way.

Of course, all these novelties I have just named have a positive side too; or better said, almost all of them are good but, like everything, used in a logical way, without abusing of them. As the saying goes, “Everything in moderation”. If we only do these activities, which don’t include any physical exercise, relationships with other people or a learning experience, what will happen with the rest of our skills? What is going to keep them working correctly and try to improve them? My advice is that everyone should make an effort not only to centre their attention on one of them and try to mix and conserve both.

Maybe things should be different, but centuries are passing and society is changing constantly. However, although we can’t make society change totally, we are able to modify the situation a little if each one contributes a bit.

I’m sure no one would like a world where the most important things are machines and electronic advances and where people could be considered “robots” without any feelings, emotions or other ambitions in life. This is not the world a child, who has the most innocent imagination, would dream of. Everyone has to take part in this work if we want to see the dream of our childhood come true.

That is why each person has to start trying to change their own habits. Despite the fact that the older people are, the more difficult to adapt habits, it is never too late to take up doing new activities. For example, activities that you hadn’t time to do before or you simply didn’t think of, such as playing any sport or instrument, singing, going to the beach, reading, sleeping… Maybe they are more relaxing and you enjoy them much more than using machines.

If we start correcting the problem, then we will be able to tell other people what he best thing for them is and maybe someone will copy these good and healthy habits. By doing this, we will at least be helping in a small way, which is better than nothing.
In conclusion, we should always do our best to improve and change things we don’t do well: activities which teenagers do in their free time are one of them and we can prove we are able to modify them!

by Laura Bouza Romero, 1ºA Bachillerato

Young people nowadays / Laura Bouza

These days most teenagers are spoiled and have some unhealthy and bad habits. This may be because of social influence, I mean, everything that people talk about as it was seen on TV, heard from other people, read in newspapers and all the media. They can also get these bad habits from their friends and family; they see people around them doing it, so they should do the same, shouldn’t they?

In my opinion, this rule and thought isn’t a good example to follow. We’re all aware that each day more and more children want to buy the newest game console, computer or any electronic device. At the same time, sports and cultural activities are more and more abandoned. Most teenagers are reducing their hobbies only to surfing the internet and playing computer or video games. To me, it seems a pity, because they are losing the time they could spend with family or friends, or even going to different places such as the cinema, parks, sports centres… There are a lot of enjoyable activities that are being forgotten, for instance, writing or reading, which for me, is the most enriching and fun activity in every way.

Of course, all these novelties I have just named have a positive side too; or better said, almost all of them are good but, like everything, used in a logical way, without abusing of them. As the saying goes, “Everything in moderation”. If we only do these activities, which don’t include any physical exercise, relationships with other people or a learning experience, what will happen with the rest of our skills? What is going to keep them working correctly and try to improve them? My advice is that everyone should make an effort not only to centre their attention on one of them and try to mix and conserve both.

Maybe things should be different, but centuries are passing and society is changing constantly. However, although we can’t make society change totally, we are able to modify the situation a little if each one contributes a bit.

I’m sure no one would like a world where the most important things are machines and electronic advances and where people could be considered “robots” without any feelings, emotions or other ambitions in life. This is not the world a child, who has the most innocent imagination, would dream of. Everyone has to take part in this work if we want to see the dream of our childhood come true.

That is why each person has to start trying to change their own habits. Despite the fact that the older people are, the more difficult to adapt habits, it is never too late to take up doing new activities. For example, activities that you hadn’t time to do before or you simply didn’t think of, such as playing any sport or instrument, singing, going to the beach, reading, sleeping… Maybe they are more relaxing and you enjoy them much more than using machines.

If we start correcting the problem, then we will be able to tell other people what he best thing for them is and maybe someone will copy these good and healthy habits. By doing this, we will at least be helping in a small way, which is better than nothing.
In conclusion, we should always do our best to improve and change things we don’t do well: activities which teenagers do in their free time are one of them and we can prove we are able to modify them!

by Laura Bouza Romero, 1ºA Bachillerato

Leisure activities today / Paula Conde

When you are 16 and you are studying bachillerato, be sure that your free time will be pretty short or you won’t have it most of times. So your leisure activities can’t be long last or be settled far away because of the time.
While young people are not at school or doing endless homework go out with friends for a walk or a drink (just if you are very lucky enough and do not have homework or you have holidays you can go to the cinema or shopping). Some people go out at night and most of them get drunk or takes drugs (or even both), so they return home high.
To stop this is a challenge for the government, which thinks that it is disgusting and unhealthy for young people. And every year it spends huge amounts of money making advertising campaigns which seem to be useless.
First of all, banned things are more attractive; in the past teens drunk alcohol too, but now that is illegal, alcohol drinking has increased a lot. And secondly, young people who drink do it for different reasons: ones do it because they like the taste and drink just a little, others who do it just because they think that if they are drunk the world seems to be funnier, and the ones who drink because it is a way to get into a social group.
Knowing this, making teens know that alcohol is not the solution of their problems or the ticket to the popular life is maybe the best solution. Because everybody who drinks knows that alcohol is unhealthy, if you drink too much and people who gets drunk does not mind at all, so the campaigns telling the alcohol effects aren’t useful at all.
But, to be honest, the government can’t reach the objective without parents’ aid, who let their sons drink and go out at night when they are aged 13 or even younger

by Paula Conde 1ºc Bach

Good and bad aspects of the leisure activities of young people nowadays / José Piñón

Today, young people do a lot of different things in our free time: from doing sport or staying with friends to going to the cinema or surfing the internet. I’m going to analyse the good and bad aspects of these activities.
I think that all the leisure activities that we can do are positive. Some of them are really good and others can be also good, but with certain moderation. I have invented a classification of the different free time activities. We can divide them in sport, culture, technologies and friends.

All the sport activities (playing basketball, football, swimming, skiing…) are totally positive; because we do exercise, we relax, meet people and we forget all our problems for a moment.

As sport, culture activities are completely good. They are things like learning to play an instrument, reading a book, writing or even going to the cinema (depending on the film).

In the technology section, I include playing videogames, surfing the internet, watching TV, listening to music, phoning a friend... Playing videogames and surfing the internet can be something very funny and interesting. There are games which tell us incredible stories as a book or a film; but we should be careful with these activities, because they can make people introverted and we mustn’t stay too much time at home. The same happens with television. There are good and bad programmes, which can influence us negatively; so we must select and not to stay much time watching them. In general, we must moderate the use of this type of activities.

Finally, we have the things that we usually do with friends: going to the cinema, going out for dinner, going out at night… Probably, they are the activities that we like the most, and they really have a lot of benefits. However, nowadays there are some problems with young people and alcohol at nights that, on the other hand, have always existed. Some people drink a bit to become more extroverted and be more talkative. But others drink until they are completely drunk. I don’ t understand the second ones very well but I think that they drink a lot to become ‘silly’; and when they are ‘silly’, all for them is funny. For me, the idea of these people, the necessity to be ‘silly’ to have a good moment, is very sad. The consequences of this are seven or eight people with an alcohol poisoning in the hospital each weekend.
It’s difficult to solve the alcohol problem because we need to change the mind of a lot of people. But I think that the government should increase the control of the alcohol sales to young people because they are starting to drink very early. Boys and girls of twelve or thirteen are buying drinks without problems. And there is a law, but it isn’t respected.

In conclusion, sport and culture activities are completely positive. The rest of activities are even better but we must moderate the use of technologies and be careful with alcohol and drugs at night. If we put this advice in practise, we can have very good moments in our free time.

by José Piñón Vila, 1º BACH A

Young people: Good & bad habits / Manuel Ángel

Young people usually use their free time very well. After a hard day, doing what we like it is very good for our body. There are a lot of activities that we can do as relaxing, playing football, playing computer games, reading, go fishing, going for a walk, going to the cinema, going to the park…

Playing a sport improves our health and it helps us to feel better. It avoids us to think about school for a time and our mind can take a break. Furthermore, playing a sport rises our interpersonal intelligence if it is a collective sport as for example basketball, football, handball…

If you are very tired and you don’t like to practise a sport, it’s very good to have a relaxed walk looking at the landscape and enjoying the moment. Teenagers prefer sunny days because we can enjoy the day outdoors, not cold days when you have to pass the time enclosed in some place.

In spite of the fact that to enjoy the free time is very important the first thing is the studies because it will be very important to our future and the will mark our life. A sport will save you if you are a very good person doing it. Meeting friends is the activity which we do a lot in our free time because we can share opinions, problems, feelings…, but teenagers also do wrong things. For example at nights. It’s true that not all the teenagers do it but most of them do it. Drinking alcohol or smoking are very bad to the health at any age, but still more if you are a young person because our body is still developing and these would stop its growth.

There are many ways to stop these activities. For example, shops can’t sell alcohol or tobacco to people who are less than eighteen years old, even though they continue selling them and teenagers continue buying them. If you drink or smoke you won’t be a better person, in any case you are showing that you aren’t mature. “Botellones” are going to be very difficult to stop because our generation didn’t invent them. They have remained in the time and they will continue more years until police punish them very hard. Anyway, night is not only alcohol or drugs because a lot of people dance; they go to several discos…

These activities aren’t the only which are bad for our body. Staying at home watching T.V., playing computer games, playing videogames… is bad for your eyes if you are a lot of time on them. In addition, it doesn’t help you to relate with other persons. Relationships at our age are very important because we have long holidays and teenagers are pleasant and entertaining persons.

Definitely we can do a lot of activities in our free time. Some of them are better than others, but it turns difficult to understand how a teenager can say: “I’m bored”.