How phones affect students’ motivation
Being on our phones all of the time makes us lazier.
By Yulissa Martinez
These days, everyone gets distracted by phones.
Some people think that phones help students, and while that may be true sometimes, phones can negatively affect motivation and passion. Phones can make people lazy and cause them to lose focus. For example, they may stop playing a sport, cleaning, going to workout or no longer pursuing something they were once motivated about.
Phones don't only affect your motivation, but also your mental health. According to The Atlantic, the rates of depression and anxiety have worsened, and the suicide rate is now 48% higher than it used to be, for adolescents ages 10 to 19. For girls 10-14 years old, those rates went up 131% between 2010 and 2019. While this may not directly be due to phone use, it would be ignorant to not see a correlation.
Not only this, but Pew Research Center reports that 57% of teens who use smartphones say the time spent on their devices is “just passing time,” when they could be doing other stuff like sports or just going outside in general. Getting outdoors and being active is something relaxing that anyone can do to help with their mental health.
When I was younger, I spent a lot of time with my family. Soon when I started getting older I realized that phones aren't something you should constantly spend your time on. I try to tell people that phones aren't everything in life; spend your life well, you only have one time to live.
If you don't want to do a sport, that's not the only option you have. You can do something else that you love and find interesting. For me, I love playing soccer. It's something that calms me down and makes me forget about everything I've been through. Seeing teens constantly scrolling on their phones makes me realize that people are less motivated and more lazy these days.
Instead of spending all your precious time on a screen, or wasting time with someone who is constantly on their phone, enjoy your time in nature and with people who actually care about you and how you are doing!
Video Games Aren’t Our Enemy
For some, they’re a mental health lifeline.
By: Kaden Romancito
When people talk about video games, it’s usually one of two things: either they’re “rotting your brains” and causing laziness, or they lead to violence. But to be honest, that's such an outdated take on video games. As someone who plays video games regularly, I've seen quite the opposite.Video games can actually help with mental health.
Video games are fun, and when you’re dealing with stress, anxiety, or even depression, sometimes finding something that brings you some joy–even for a little while–can be a game changer. Whether it’s getting lost in a world like Zelda/Elden Ring, or solving puzzles games like Portal, that sense of immersion can give your brain a break when it’s spiraling with negative thoughts.
That’s not to say that gaming is merely a distraction, though. Games often give us goals and a sense of achievement. When life feels out of control, even something like leveling up your character or finishing a tough mission in the game Elden Ring can give you a little boost. Those small wins matter, especially when real-life victories feel rare or hard to reach.
And let’s not forget the social side of gaming. Online multiplayer games like Fortnite, and Grand Theft Auto Online, can help people feel connected, especially when they’re feeling isolated otherwise. Talking to friends through voice chat, teaming up on missions and challenges, or even just vibing on a random server can provide support and laughter when you need it most. This became especially true amid the pandemic, when mental health issues among teens peaked. Being forced to stay inside at home,tons of people turned to gaming to stay close to their friends when they couldn’t hang out in person.
Of course, like anything, gaming can be overdone. It's all about balance. If someone is ignoring their responsibilities or cutting off real-life connections, that is unhealthy. But the idea that video games are always bad for your brain is just wrong. In reality they offer comfort, motivation, and community when you need it most.
So maybe it’s finally time to stop blaming video games and give it credit for all the wonderful things it can do for a young person. For some, gaming isn’t just a hobby but part of how they stay mentally strong.
Social media's impact on girls
Although there are pros and cons to these online platforms, I think that social media affects girls more negatively than positively.
By: Stephanie Granillo
How is social media harming girls?
Social media has been around since 1997, and as the years have progressed, the platform has become a place where everyone can express themselves and share all their passions. However, beneath all the positive and encouraging content, there's a dark side of social media that makes young girls in this generation, including those living in New Mexico, more insecure than ever.
According to a study made by “Support The Garden” young girls who are exposed to social media from the ages 11-13 all over the world are seen struggling with mental health more than any other previous generation.
Not only does social media affect girls' mental health, but their physical health as well. A study from “National Library Of Medicine” states that eating disorders in girls have increased over the last 50 years from the ages 10 to 19. Researchers say that media plays a crucial role in starting or intensifying an eating disorder.
Personally in my life, I have always struggled with insecurities, and social media does nothing but make it worse. Social media should be a place where young girls can feel accepted and loved; however, it’s the opposite. I have been on social media since I was nine years old. Instead of being able to express myself, I have noticed how these platforms exploit and bully social media bullies young girls for simply being themselves.
Not only that but influencers are seen to promote bodies that are not realistic to girls who are still developing. These types of videos and posts only cause insecurities in young girls and women. Girls believe that influencers who document their “perfect life” are better than them.
I think social media has the potential to be an amazing platform, and don’t get me wrong, I have seen many positive things happen in the media, but it seems some people want to cause nothing but harm as they feed their own ego.
My Thoughts on Abortion
I believe abortion is right and men should NOT have an opinion on this topic.
By: Sofia Trillo
Abortion is thought of in many different ways. I stand by the fact that abortion is a human right when used properly, and women should have the right to choose what they do with their bodies.
Today , most people are wondering if women rights will be taken away. The incoming president is looking to ban the rights for women to be able to abort. Although many people agree with him, I strongly disagree. During these times women are very scared to lose their rights to a male's decision. This is why I feel that men shouldn’t even weigh in on their opinions and should have no power over whether or not a woman can access an abortion.
I personally feel like abortion should not be banned. A ban would mean that women who experienced sexual assault would not be able to abort a child that they did not consent to having. Many teenage girls are raped and end up pregnant. This is when they should be able to decide if they can get an abortion or not. People do not realize that there are people who are having kids so young due to being assaulted, which ruins their lives. Teenagers should not be doing things that will lead to them having to get an abortion, especially if they don’t want a kid, but if it eventually does happen, they should have the choice to keep their baby or not.
A news site states that in 14 states nearly 65,000 rape victims are not able to get an abortion due to the state laws. This really impacts people for the rest of their lives; the trauma will stay with them no matter what, but having the baby will trigger them even more. No one should have to go through this. No baby deserves to live a life where their mom could get PTSD from being around them. Every baby deserves to be loved and cared for.
Students at school agree. “I think our rights to abort should not be taken away, but it should only be used if you get sexually assaulted, not just because you decided to have intercourse and could’t take responsibility for your actions,” Evolet Salazar, a freshman at AHA said.
Amnesty International and the Human Rights Watch agree. They say women are not free when they can’t make decisions about their own body. Everyone has the right to control their own fertility and exercise reproductive autonomy. With that being said, many women are losing their rights and people seem to not care! We need to come together and raise awareness of the way our rights as women should not be taken away.
The Climate Clock is Ticking: Are We Ready to Act?
Climate Change is a topic we should all care more about.
By: Alexandra Orozco
As climate change continues to change our world, it’s time to make a change and take action, starting here in Albuquerque.
We should all take climate change more seriously because of the many ways it’s harming our world. We all have a role to play, and even doing the bare minimum can make a difference. Saving energy at home, using less gasoline, and even eating more vegetables are all examples of how we can curb climate change.
The scientific understanding of climate change dates back to the 19th century. The discovery of climate change began when ice ages and other natural shifts in the climate were first suspected. This was also when the natural greenhouse effect was first identified. This is a natural process that traps heat from the sun in the earth’s atmosphere, causing the planet to warm up. According to the United Nations, “The world is now warming faster than at any point in recorded history.” Nearly all land areas are seeing hotter days and heat waves, with 2020 being one of the hottest years on record. Higher temperatures increase heat-related illnesses and can make it more difficult to work and move around. Wildfires start and spread more rapidly when conditions are dry and hot.
Climate change affects all living things and the environment they live in. The Arctic is one of the ecosystems most affected by climate change right now. The Arctic is warming twice as fast as the global average. Warming in the Arctic has many impacts that are felt across the whole world. Higher sea levels puts coastal areas at risk of storm surges and erosions. Warming waters can lead to coral bleaching, which puts many species that rely on healthy coral reefs at risk of extinction.
Here in Albuquerque we are facing climate change impacts, including hotter summers, prolonged droughts, water scarcity, and increased wildfire risks. If we were to focus on reducing emissions and improving quality of life, we could combat these issues. According to Climate Check, more than half of the buildings in Albuquerque are at risk of wildfire, and little less than half are at risk of flooding and the risk level for all these buildings is very high. The number of the hottest days in Albuquerque is projected to keep increasing and according to Climate Check a couple of years ago people in albuquerque only experienced 7 days above 97.0ºF in a year. “By 2050, people in Albuquerque are projected to experience an average of about 45 days per year over 97.0ºF.”
We already know many of the causes and solutions to climate change, and researchers continue to keep finding discoveries; however, we still choose to not take action. Unfortunately, most of the climate-related problems are happening because of our own actions. If we were to make even a minimal effort, we could make a big change.
Things we could do to fight climate change include the following: Throwing away less food, changing a home’s source of energy, switching to an electric vehicle, and even just using the RRRR method (reduce, reuse, repair, and recycle).When you throw food away, you’re not only wasting the food but the resources and energy that were used to grow, produce, package and transport it as well.When food rots in a landfill, it produces methane, a powerful greenhouse gas. If your home’s energy comes from oil, coal, or gas it would be better to switch to renewable sources, such as wind or solar. Electric cars help reduce air pollution and cause significantly fewer greenhouse gas emissions than gas or diesel-powered vehicles.
We are ruining the beautiful world that we live in, and if we keep doing that then we aren’t going to have a healthy environment to live in. Yes, changing your daily life may be difficult, but it’s worth it – for our own lives, and the lives of those to come.
Take a minute to write an introduction that is short, sweet, and to the point. If you sell something, use this space to describe it in detail and tell us why we should make a purchase. Tap into your creativity. You’ve got this.
How Do Students Feel About President Trump’s Approach to Immigrants?
In a school where more than 90 percent of students identify as Hispanic or Latino, Trump’s anti-immigrant and racist rhetoric is especially alarming.
NOTE: For the protection of our students, we have used first names only.
“I think the mass deportations are inhumane. These people escaped their country for freedom and safety. They are hard working people who make up a lot of the population of the United States.” - Nati, 17
“Trump’s presidency is a scary thing for a lot of immigrants. I personally come from a family that are immigrants and it’s been very hard living in a country where you feel unwanted.” - Joselyn, 17
“Splitting up a family is awful. Knowing that a mother can't see their 5 year old grow up and experience what every mother wants is disturbing. How easy it is for these people to separate families and rip them from their homes…Where is the empathy and freedom we claim to have in the United States?” - Bianca, 18
“It’s so hard living in a place like this where you don’t feel accepted.”- Jasmine 17
“Trump truly doesn’t know how much he is affecting these families. He is a white man who never had to deal with the scary thought you could get deported at any time. He’s only trying to help those white people who are richer than most. All he cares about is money.” Briseidy, 16
We Can Defeat Racism in Sports Together
While racism persists in all sports, it’s arguably the worst in soccer. It’s important that we take discriminatory comments seriously — both on and off the field.
By: Nathan Marsh
On the soccer field it’s not uncommon to hear players or fans making racist comments.
It’s important for both players and viewers of sports to put a stop to racist commentary. It can affect players in many different ways, one of them being their mental health.
“A way we can avoid racism in sports is by banning players if they say anything offensive, and make them learn their lesson by banning them for a long time,” said sophomore and student athlete Damian Juarez.
Although racism in sports is prevalent, racism is arguably the worst in soccer. “Of the 131 racist acts in sports in 2019, 81 of them (62%) were related to soccer, the most popular and most played sport in the world,” according to ESPN.
As a soccer player I have experienced first hand racism in games, and it can be pretty bad. I’ve heard players get called the n-word and other things like “wetback” and “border hopper.
Sophomore Gilberto Prieto agrees and says that, “ We should educate people and create a safe space and support athletes to speak up.”
Regardless of an athlete's skin color, we should be able to enjoy watching and playing the sport together. Racism has no place anywhere.
AHA staff and students: What’s your favorite car?
Brandon Gonzalez asks students and staff about their car preferences.
Identity causes alienation
I am something not a lot of people are.
By: Marlie Nelson
Why is my blackness always questioned?
Being judged based on your looks is not a unique experience. I wish people were just treated as humans by one another and that your appearance was seen as just an accessory. Unfortunately, that is not the world we live in.
I am only 25% black, with white passing siblings and an absent African American father. It's like I was given the identity crisis starter pack. My mother raised me right and always educated me on black culture. She made sure I knew how to do my hair, watched all the culturally significant movies, and kept me musically educated. So I knew I didn’t fit into the “black girls who clearly have white mothers” stereotype.
But, when I step outside my house, I’m no longer my own person. We are all the ideas everyone else has created of us. It feels like I have to try to prove my blackness a little more through my fashion and the way I do my hair. Now don't get me wrong, I love fashion and fresh hairstyles, but I just have the pressure to be a little more than everyone else so the questions about “what I am” can be kept to a minimum.
My mother has done a good job at making sure I am confident with who I am, but it can be hard when you are at Walmart and people give you weird stares because there's a tan girl with butterfly locs in her hair walking around with a white woman. It’s like nobody has ever seen mixed race children before! Or when you're getting picked up from school and your father has to prove to staff that my siblings are his, since they are white passing and he's black. Or when you're sitting with your friends, and they find out how black you really are and now the room is having a debate on whether or not you can say the N word. Or when you're in a room with other dark skinned people and they assume you think you're better than them because of deep-rooted colorism that lighter skinned people display onto them.
Everybody has unconscious biases. According to the University of California, San Francisco, unconscious biases are “social stereotypes about certain groups of people that individuals form outside their own conscious awareness.” It is almost normalized, and goes completely unnoticed.
My friends like to call me an “undercover weird girl,” because my looks don’t match my personality, as if there is a specific way to look based on the way you act. That is an unconscious bias. Have you ever noticed how when a girl is socially unattractive or non threatening looking, she goes unnoticed? Now I don't want to gas myself up, but not only am I pretty with great fashion and style; I have confidence. Now a confident black girl who is very expressive with clothing and hair and a RBF… I am now seen as a challenging young woman. I am assumed to be mean, uptight, sassy, intimidating, and unapproachable. I find that people enjoy staring at me. Now, these stares range from curiosity and admiration to jealousy and judgement. I have become so used to it that I no longer notice, but my mother and boyfriend always recognize when other people's eyes are on me.
I know all this sounds conceded, like it must be sooo hard being pretty to look at, but at the end of the day, I just want to be left alone. I don’t want to be an idea inside of anyone's head; I just want to be me. I don't want people to be surprised when I speak because they thought I would use different slang or that I wouldn’t know a specific online meme that's trending. I just want to be accepted as I am.
At the end of the day, if I was a white girl saying she loves Olivia Rodrigo, nobody would bat an eye. If I was a boy spitting out brain rot memes, it would be normal. But instead, I fit into the “Hot Cheeto Girl” aesthetic, liking “white girl music” and having a socially controversial humor that isn’t really the normal mix. That does not help with causing an identity crisis for a teenage girl. I am me. I will always be me.
It is important not to lose your identity trying to be what others want you to be, because trust me, it's a very easy problem to fall into. You wonder all the time why you're not like anyone else you see around you, and you start to think it's a bad thing. In reality, that’s how it is supposed to be. I wish someone had told me this before, which is why I am saying it now. Anybody who is spending time judging you for being who you are is losing in life, and that is okay. Because you’re not. You’re simply being you, and you’re winning.