IB written task

Hello, I have to write two written tasks for my IB course, I've finished the first one, and I'm working on the second one now. Before I hand in the first one I wanted to post it on a website like this so people can tell me what they think. This is essay counts for quite a large part of my grade so I want to make sure its good.

p.s. I couldn't add pictures. So you'll either have to imagine it, or use google insight to get the pictures yourself.

Procrastination, a new kind of adiction

Procrastination is the act of putting of important tasks, like for example an essay you have to complete, in order to do meaningless activities instead. According to a study published in the American Psychological Association, people in our current society are procrastinating much more than the average person in the 70’s. In 1978, 5% of Americans saw themselves as a chronic procrastinator, meaning that they would often spend more time trying to delay their work than the actual time spent towards completion. This percentage rocketed skywards to an incredible 26% in 2007. We can assume that this number has risen since then, because if we take Facebook for example, in 2008 it had a monthly growth of 178%. Since 2008, the number of people using Facebook has multiplied eight fold. In the graph you can see the comparison between the times people searched the term ‘Facebook’ (blue) or the term ‘politics’ (red) in google.

All this talk about Facebook leads us to the obvious question, what’s the cause of this explosive growth of the people affected by procrastination? The biggest factor is the rise in technology; procrastinating had become a lot easier. Whether you’re working, or if you’re supposed to study for a test, hundreds of forms of entertainment are but a mouse click away. It’s estimated that a game as simple as ‘minesweeper’ costs the American government billions of dollars a year. If someone is supposed to be filing company reports into excel, they could just as well be googling pictures of cats. I compared the search of the word ‘cat’, compared to the search of ‘Obama’ in the past 90 days. It would be expected that Barack Obama would be searched a lot, since there is a lot of dispute whether he’s running his country successfully in these crisis times. ‘Obama’ (blue), and ‘cats’ (red). When they were compared cats got a score of 23, while Obama only got a score of 24. This is an international comparison. When we look at theUKfor example, it’s apparent that ‘cats’ score 70, while ‘Obama’ only scores 19. Even David Cameron, who is the prime minister ofEngland, only scores an 11, compared to cats who score 91.

Another big problem is the rising trend of Smartphone’s. Blackberry used to be a corporate phone, one that was always part of the business man image. Now you see just about everyone using a Blackberry, Iphone or other Smartphone. Nearly half ofUK’s teenagers ages 12 – 15 owns a Smartphone, and 60% of them classify themselves as addicted. Although this problem is greatest amongst younger people, it’s also apparent amongst adults, where 27% has a Smartphone, and 36% classes themselves as addicted. The thing about these Smartphone’s is that they will notify you when ever you have a new e-mail or a notification on Facebook. People are constantly connected to the internet, so their not only available to the people they’re working with, but to anyone with access to any of their social networking accounts. According to Facebook they have over 800 million ‘active users’ (11.5% of the entire world population) and 50% of the active users are on Facebook everyday. There are also over 350 million mobile Facebook users; this means they’ll get a notification on their Smartphone whenever someone decides they need to say something to them, or even when someone comments on something they have commented on earlier.

So why is this actually such a big problem? Although there haven’t been many studies as to what kind of causes procrastination has to the society, but it is however evident that people could save up to $400 if they didn’t procrastinate about filing their taxes.

If people are supposed to be working, but actually messaging people on Facebook, or looking at funny pictures on the internet, their productivity drops. Companies are paying people, while they are not working to their fullest capabilities. There have been many disputed whether a company should be able to monitor their employees browsing history. This has been said to be in violation with privacy laws, but it would also be a good way of decreasing procrastination in offices.

As was evident from earlier statistic evidence, the people affected the most by procrastination are younger people, as they own the most Smartphone’s and according to a study by Yahoo! The average teen spends 16.7 hours a week online. This is time that also could be spent studying. This could also be a reason why theUKis dropping in the international list for graduation rates. Students are wasting their time, and leaving the studying to the last possible moment. This causes them to get bad grades, and this will decrease their chances of getting into a university, and if they have already managed to get admitted to one, it might cause them to get expelled.

The graduation standard inHollandis rising, because students inHollandare getting a lot of competition from students abroad. In these economically difficult times, the government has to save money, and one of the ways they are doing this is by increasing the costs for universities. This is putting more pressure on today’s students because if their having trouble with their school work because they’re procrastinating, there will be some other kid who doesn’t have that trouble. Schools can no longer say that it’s your own responsibility, because according to the study published by the American Psychological Association, it’s more difficult to cure a chronic procrastinator, than an alcoholic.

I think there should be more attention in schools to this problem, because although little is still known, a lot of people see it as a problem. When you search ‘procrastination’ in Amazon, you get to choose out from more than 800 self help books. In these current times, where competition is harsh, and corporations are merciless, students have to be taught how to get the most out of their study, and the most of themselves. To quote Benjamin Franklin: “You may delay, but time will not.”

I hope you find my essay interesting, and you could give me some pointers, thank you.

p.s. My second written task has to be about a book, so I'm planning to do a written task about The lord of the flies, and write a parody. Does this seem like a good idea? and any advice or ideas on this topic are welcome too.