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The contradiction that is social media puts into question whether its benefits outweigh its drawbacks

by Stephanie Leonardelli November 25, 2021

written by Stephanie Leonardelli

Anybody can access Civic Tech Toronto’s weekly Hacknight through the organization’s Facebook.

Every Tuesday the diverse community of Torontonians meets virtually to share stories and find solutions to civic challenges through technology and design.

One particular Tuesday, a guest lecturer was invited to discuss universal basic income. At the meeting start time, community members rolled in and joined a sea of dark screens waiting for the presentation to commence.

A voice unmutes and the guest speaker is introduced.

Before the presentation could get underway, an unknown, unwanted guest enters the Zoom meeting. No one anticipated what was about to happen next.

Profanity, Nazi symbols, and a combination of speech and laughter echo through headphones and across computer screens. The mystery person gained full control of the meeting.

What was supposed to be a socially impactful discussion turned into a threatening intrusion.

“That was a really pivotal moment for us… It really forced us to reexamine our code of conduct and how we invite people into our conversations,” said Skaidra Puodžiūnas, the co-organizer of Civic Tech Toronto.

Isn’t it ironic? A social media platform that is utilized to spread information, share ideas and build community is the same vehicle that invited hate, sparked fear and made people feel unsafe.

This is the contradiction that is social media.

Social media was originally created with a simple purpose: to help users connect digitally while physically apart. Somewhere along the way the purpose evolved and, instead of using social platforms as a means of gaining exposure, the virtual universe has seemingly left people feeling exposed.

In the recent instance with James Herbert Brock, social media saved the life of the 16-year-old girl he was holding captive.

After being reported missing by her parents, distress hand signals made popular by TikTok alerted another driver and aided sheriff’s deputies in Kentucky to stop the car and arrest the abductor.

But, it was also social media that resulted in her abductor obtaining photos he wasn’t meant to see.

The man who abducted her had possession of pictures that portrayed her in a sexual manner. Technology, specifically social media, has propelled the non-consensual distribution of intimate images. According to the FBI, over a quarter of all reported exploitation incidents involve an online predator asking a child for sexually explicit photos. This reality, coupled with sexual predators’ ability to find and locate targets via social platforms with ease, has driven a frightening increase in the sheer number of these types of incidents.

Once again, the social media platforms that seem to be “saving us” – in this case, TikTok – are the same channels putting us in harm’s way. “While [social media] is an incredible place to build community, you just don’t really know who you are engaging with,” says Puodžiūnas.

She explains the reality of digital identities: “The platforms just accept anyone and everyone. It takes you five seconds to create a Reddit profile, or an online dating profile, or a Facebook profile. There’s no accountability,” says the senior digital advisor with Ontario Digital Service.

With the expansion of the internet and social networking sites, there are an estimated 3.8 billion social media users worldwide, and roughly half of the 3.7 hours spent on our mobile devices each day is consumed by social and communications apps.

According to Statistics Canada, social media is regularly used by approximately 90 per cent of Canadians aged 15 to 34. In 2018, the Canadian Internet Use Survey examined the reports of negative effects individuals aged 15 to 64 experience as a result of social networking; some of the most concerning outcomes existed among those in their teens and twenties.

Graphic of the negative outcomes that social media has on young people. (Stephanie Leonardelli/On The Record)

But the negative effects go beyond the increased number of sexual predators or the effects these platforms have on the mental health of users. Social media has created “an echo chamber effect,” says Robert Clapperton, Ryerson’s digital enterprise and communication research method professor.

“The worst parts of social media are what actually make it work,” he says. He explains how the algorithmic basis of how things are accomplished over social media continue to silo people into their own bubbles: “It doesn’t allow for a diversity in opinions.”

While social media platforms have been praised for providing direct access to an unprecedented amount of content, the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) conducted research on how these platforms influence information spreading and the echo chamber effect on social media.

According to PNAS, an echo chamber is an online environment in which users’ opinions get reinforced by interacting with like-minded sources. The environment tends to widen ideological divisions and limit exposure to diverse perspectives.

The academy’s research found that different platforms foster different levels of segregation in online communities depending on the platform’s feed algorithms and their social networking features.

“Technology is supposed to give us immediate access to whatever we want to know, but that has now made us more blind to what is actually going on,” says e-commerce business owner, Genevieve Vendittelli. She explains how we simply will not hear about it “if it doesn’t fit in our ‘belief system algorithm’ encoded onto our phones.”

While these sorts of algorithms increase polarization, the research concluded that when polarization is high, misinformation quickly proliferates.

Yet again, one of social media’s greatest assets — the power of spreading information — is also its greatest weakness.

So, the question becomes: with all these contradictions, do the benefits of social media outweigh the drawbacks?

For Vendittelli, the answer is simple: “While it varies from user to user, the benefits I get out of social media outweigh the drawbacks because of my awareness. Social media, for me, is whatever you make it to be.”

Vendittelli explains how she uses social media to get inspired, reach new audiences and create relationships with other brands. “On a business level, it provides great metrics about our target market, what content they want to see, and when they want to see it.”

While she has fallen victim to triggering posts before, she says the key to breaking free was to “have enough self-awareness to not be so consumed by what you’re consuming. You have the power to mute content on your feed, unfollow people you don’t gain value from [and] set limits to reduce your daily usage.”

She emphasizes that “it’s the end-receiver of the content’s responsibility to choose what they consume… If you’re going to let those triggering posts get the best of you, then yes, the drawbacks definitely outweigh the positives.”

Although the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders has not officially identified social media addiction as diagnosable, it does not change the reality that unhealthy usage can cause distress and negatively affect people’s lives.

Ryerson biomedical science student, Marisa Chiaravalloti, used the example of Snapchat streaks – the number of consecutive days two people have been sending Snapchats to each other – to highlight how social media can become unhealthy.

She explained how, in high school, she would keep ‘streaks’ with people but eventually realized that she was sending snaps to people she hardly spoke with anymore. “I was just doing it for the sake of having a number on my phone,” said Chiaravalloti. “It gives everyone this false narrative of being connected.”

Though Chiaravalloti sees the benefits that exist on social media for businesses, she ultimately says the negative emotional effects these platforms have on people are not offset by the rewards: “It’s close, but I think it does more bad than good.”

For Ryerson alumna and registered dietitian, Cristina Cappucci, the answer isn’t as clear-cut. “Perhaps it’s quite equal – the drawbacks of social media could be very, very severe, but the benefits could be very, very amazing and life changing.”

As an anti-diet dietitian that started her business amidst a pandemic, Cappucci says social media has allowed her to achieve “reach” without boundaries.

“It’s amazing to be able to change so many people’s lives without meeting them,” she said. “I have had people who are clients and people who aren’t clients message me and tell me how my social media presence has helped them feel better about food and their body image.”

But she points out that when somebody is new to social media, the experience can “start off negative if the algorithm starts putting [people] down that rabbit hole.”

In the health and nutrition industry in particular, social media can be very contradictory: “I have clients who are following me and my account where I talk about making peace with food, but [at the same time] are also following influencers who are body-shaming.”

While the answer is clearly subjective as to whether the benefits outweigh the drawbacks, Puodžiūnas believes that we have an opportunity to rethink the role social media plays in our day-to-day lives. “It’s hard to imagine a life without social media. I don’t even know if we are at a point where we could not have [it] part of our lives.”

November 25, 2021

Code Red Environment Features The World After COVID-19 Top Top stories

‘Seriously radical’ steps needed to confront climate change, says author

by Tess Stuber October 31, 2021

written by Tess Stuber

In order to save the planet, Lloyd Alter has a succinct message for us all to live by.

“Don’t eat red meat, don’t drive, live in a small space, don’t get in a plane and stop buying so much shit.”

Alter teaches sustainable design at Ryerson and lives what he calls a 1.5-degree lifestyle in downtown Toronto in an attempt to drastically reduce his carbon footprint. He documented his experience in his book Living the 1.5 Degree Lifestyle.

The book’s title refers to the target the international community set in 2015 to reduce global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius, compared to pre-industrial levels. Under the Paris climate agreement, countries committed to trying to meet the target by reducing their greenhouse gas emissions.

One of the ways Alter tried to track his own carbon footprint — or how much greenhouse gas is generated by daily activities — was to calculate his emission cost for an order from Swiss Chalet. He said he analyzed the emissions created to raise the chicken, run the store, make the packaging, deliver it to his house and any other contributing factors.

“What I found throughout the whole exercise was that it’s the delivery that totally killed it,” he said. “Getting a really good handle on what your carbon footprint is in many things is really hard. But what you do find very quickly, is the things that really make a huge impact. And that is cars.”

That’s an observation that would resonate with Ria Bhalla, a second-year creative industries student, who made a change when she moved to Toronto to attend school. She said she chose not to bring her car because she has access to the TTC.

“It really does help the environment when not everybody owns a car and when we have these community resources that we can use,” she said.

Prior to coming to Toronto, Bhalla said she drove often because she didn’t have good public transportation in her hometown.

To stay under 1.5 C of warming, the world has a carbon emissions budget target of 25 gigatonnes in 2030.

“If you divide that by the world’s population, the result is roughly 3.4 tonnes per person per year,” Alter wrote. “Multiply that by 72 per cent (the amount of greenhouse gas emissions that come from household consumption) and you get a 2030 target lifestyle footprint of 2.5 tonnes of [carbon dioxide equivalent] CO2e per person per year. That’s the 1.5-degree lifestyle.

“Lifestyle emissions are not just individual but the things that we share a piece of, from how we organize our society and our institutions,” wrote Alter.

Alter says when looking at the categories with the highest carbon footprint, the easiest changes students can make that have the biggest impacts are cutting out red meat, not using private car transportation and buying less stuff.

Eating a locally sourced, plant-based diet and limiting private car transportation are two of the changes recommended by the new report from the Hot or Cool Institute, published in October.

Graph courtesy of the Hot or Cool Institute’s report

Canada has the highest average lifestyle carbon footprint per year of the countries analyzed in this report, with the highest categories of use being transportation and housing.

High-income countries will have to make the most significant lifestyle changes in order to meet the Paris target. These countries, including Canada, will need to reduce lifestyle footprints by 91 to 95 per cent. Middle-income countries will only need to reduce their footprints by 68 to 86 per cent, according to the report.

Many people don’t consider the amount of emissions that are involved in the production of items, Alter said.

He explained that people often think electric cars are the answer to environmentally friendly transportation, but forget about the “upfront” carbon cost. He said most people are only thinking about energy consumption, not the carbon used in both production and consumption.

He said it takes about 14 tonnes of carbon to make a Tesla, which is nearly seven years of a person’s carbon budget.

“It’s a fantasy that electric cars and trucks are going to save us because when you’re talking carbon, the upfront carbon is as or more important than the operating carbon because it’s going into the air right now,” he said.

According to the report from the Hot or Cool Institute, building infrastructure that promotes lower-carbon lifestyle habits is a crucial responsibility of the governments of the major industrialized countries, including Canada.

Bella Alcántara, a fourth-year architecture student, says one thing Canada could do is promote eating plant-based diets and ensure equal access to these types of foods.

The government already incentivizes taking the TTC or drinking Canadian dairy so they could do the same thing to shift food consumption, says Alcántara.

She says she switched to a vegan diet to reduce her carbon footprint. “Accessibility to plant-based options is definitely a privilege though,” she said.

Protein-dense vegan options like Beyond Meat and other meat substitutes can be expensive, she explained.

The Hot or Cool Insitute calls this the “lock-in effect,” when a consumer does not have a choice in a more sustainable option.

In Toronto, this could be the result of a lack of TTC access in suburbs or only having expensive grocery stores or convenience stores in your neighbourhood.

That’s why, Alter said, we have to, “vote with our wallets and vote with our feet.”

Alter said it’s important people vote for candidates who support climate action and sustainable policy. But he said that none of the parties, not even the Green Party, is suggesting the big scale changes the world needs.

“We have to get more seriously radical to convince them that the needle has to move,” he said.

Alter referenced a group called Insulate Britain whose members are being arrested for blocking the roads in protest of a lack of action from the British government.

Insulate Britain is asking the British government to fully fund the proper insulation of all social housing. They’re also asking that all homes in Britain be insulated and transitioned to low-energy, low-carbon living spaces. This is part of a larger transition to lower emissions for the country.

The Hot or Cool report notes that personal transportation, diet and housing footprints are the three categories most crucial for Canada.

“The emissions share of the top one per cent highest income earners is greater than the total emissions of the bottom 50 per cent combined — and may be twice as high,” the report reads.

Western countries like Canada have far higher carbon emissions than countries in the global South, so the responsibility of these countries to change their lifestyles is more pressing, making this a controversial report, Alter wrote.

The responsibility of the “polluter elite” to reduce their carbon footprint is even higher, the report notes.

The polluter elite are the wealthiest individuals whose net worth, lifestyle and political influence mainly rest on wealth that is derived from investments in polluting activities.

“The 80 million richest people around the world are responsible for more greenhouse gas emissions from their consumption and their investments than the poorest four billion,” the report says.

October 31, 2021

Business Features Money Talk News Top Top stories

Cryptocurrency — ‘down the rabbit hole’

by Rida Khan October 28, 2021

written by Rida Khan

A Bitcoin in a bed of black crystals. (Executium/Unsplash)

In 2012, during his second year of university, Ethan Lou was scrolling across the dark web one day when he came across something different than what usually dominated the space. It was a reference to a digital currency called Bitcoin.

Why was it on the dark web?

Later that year, Lou was interning at a newspaper in New Brunswick, the Telegraph-Journal, where he got to interview Anthony Di Lorio who’d go on to be the co-founder of Ethereum (a cryptocurrency). That is what got Lou taking it more seriously.

Di Lorio made a crypto price prediction at that time. Lou said, “Some people are leery of making price predictions because you always end up on the wrong side of history.” But Di Lorio’s price prediction turned out to be correct quite soon — by 2013.

“That was when I first bought crypto. And that is how I went down the rabbit hole,” said Lou.

Cryptocurrency is digital currency that functions in the same way as any other legal tender for buying goods and services. It’s a highly volatile market and that brings with it the attraction of making large profits in a short time. With multimillionaires and billionaires like Elon Musk, founder of SpaceX and Tesla, starting to invest in it and promoting it, many people are following suit.

But as cryptocurrency booms, so does its dark market.

Cryptocurrency has evolved to the stage where it is here to stay. But that doesn’t mean that there aren’t still big questions swirling around it. How safe is the Bitcoin market? Is it really as egalitarian as it seems? How environmentally friendly is it?

When Lou made his initial crypto investment, his in-depth research started as well.

At one point, he came across what was advertised as a crypto workshop. “It turned out to be basically like a multi-level marketing scheme,” said Lou. “They were using the name of crypto, and they were saying that they had a crypto project, but it was, in fact, basically the same as any other pyramid scheme in the past. And these are quite prevalent.”

Beyond the crypto basics, majority investors are uninformed about the intricacies of the market.

According to Finder Canada’s latest study, 4.2 million Canadians — or 14 per cent of the adult population — own some form of cryptocurrency. According to the Bank of Canada, more than 85 per cent of Canadians know what cryptocurrency is.

But in the eyes of marketing and investment adviser Alexandre LaFrance, many junior investors are poorly instructed and become the prime targets of the “pump-and-dump” scams that run the dark market of cryptocurrency.

Lou, a Ryerson journalism school alumnus and author of the book, Once a Bitcoin Miner: Scandal and Turmoil in the Cryptocurrency Wild West, elaborated on this cluster of stakeholders: “I think crypto is often talked about and the group itself is not always spoken to. “And I do think most investors have only a surface-level knowledge. But I think you can say that about most retail investors on anything. People are very easily taken advantage of by unsavoury characters in crypto.”

One such character is a 22-year-old Canadian male who goes by the alias Logi Song. Song has been an active participant in these scam groups.

“All we did was participate in pump-and dump-schemes to get money from suckers,” he said.

He reflects on their legacy as one that stole money from people who received nothing in return but the dream of compensation. “I had my circle and connections. … They were all greedy sociopaths who deserve nothing, but get everything. … Same with me, unfortunately.”

But Song was in too deep when he realized his hate for the scam culture. Despite helping him reach his financial goals, Song said crypto fraud became a sick obsession. He was infatuated with money and jealous of people who made more.

“It killed all my motivation to live my real life,” said Song.

“It ruined my worldview because, in 2020, I worked hard to get my life together and get a job without crypto. But if I can just make money by soft scamming people, what was the point of all this hard work? It makes me feel sick to enjoy anything and makes me hate humanity.”

He refers to it as soft scamming, since the people running the show are not the ones who created the scheme. He says the creators take advantage of people who enter the market without sufficient knowledge.

Song notes that many people running these groups are between the ages of 18 and 22. And so are the targets.

“For the people who know what they are doing, it is not even a risk. For them, a bad day is when they don’t make enough money. The noobs (new people without sufficient knowledge) are the ones with all the risk, and of course, some noobs win.”

The demographic with the largest share in cryptocurrency is the 18-24 age group. They hold 18 per cent of the Canadian crypto market -— which is one of the biggest crypto markets in the world right now, according to research by TripleA, a cryptocurrency exchange.

What helped this happen is that Canada became the first country to pass a digital currency law, in 2014, and since then has hosted a friendly-yet-regulated crypto investment and trading market, as well as becoming a leading market for ETFs and NFTs.

One of the many Canadians who started investing around that time, is Julian Figueroa. In 2015, while he was a student, his life changed for the better thanks to cryptocurrency investments. He is now a crypto educator and runs a YouTube channel.

He says that 70 per cent of his audience consists of young people. “I think, for the most part, they’re just looking to get into something because they see their savings accounts basically produce nothing,” he speculates.

Micah Taggart-Cox is a 19-year-old student at the University of British Columbia. His love for coins goes way back — before digital coins were even a thing. “I’ve been into physical coin collecting since I was really little and got more into coins and silver collecting since COVID.”

He bought crypto for the first time in December 2020. “When I first bought crypto, I didn’t really understand much about markets or crypto, so I just kinda yolo’d (you only live once) and figured out how everything worked afterwards.” He said that almost all the people his age who start investing in crypto “yolo some money into something they see online.”

Since school went online, Taggart-Cox said students have saved more, and as a result have started investing. He has also seen students invest and lose all their student loan money in GameStop, Dogecoin and other internet-hyped meme investments. “I have seen statistics that quite a lot of people invest with borrowed money.”

Based on what he’s seen on Reddit, Taggart-Cox reckons that there are “more former students (who) borrow money to invest in risky assets to pay off their student debt than current students would.”

“Crypto projects actually gain a lot from the greed of newcomers,” said Figueroa. Too often, he sees people driven by the fear of missing out on something that they read about on social media.

His advice is that if a coin (cryptocurrencies are also referred to as coins) is already going up and there is a lot of chatter online, it’s probably already too late. “There are instances where you might be able to make money if you happen to be early to one of these things. But most of them are pump-and-dumps.”

Taggart-Cox said that when he started investing, he didn’t have any specific goal. For him, “it’s a very financially driven hobby. But I do think crypto, in some form, will make the world a better place, so that is another part of it.”

Figueroa said that this specific do-good motivation is a general trend for young investors. “They want to get into something that they think is kind of the future of currency and is also good for the world.”

To someone like Figueroa, dominant currencies come with a marked history.

“Throughout history, countries with dominant currencies have been able to hold on to that status because of violence. They’ve started wars. They’ve been aggressive nations,” he said. “Bitcoin represents the opposite of that.” He explains that Bitcoin represents a more egalitarian philosophy by shifting the power of currency control from the governments to the people.

“I think people nowadays, especially younger people, are very conscious of the morality of what they invest in,” said Figueroa. “They want to invest in things that are environmentally friendly, socially responsible, and things like that. And Bitcoin is probably the most socially responsible investment you can get into.”

However, its environmental footprint has become questionable. According to research by Galaxy Digital, Bitcoin consumes 113.89 terawatt-hours (TWh) per year globally. Based on the Canada Energy Regulatory body, each Bitcoin mined uses more electricity than one Canadian household does in a month.

As stated in the report, one of the main reasons cryptocurrency miners are interested in operating in Canada is the relatively cheap electricity, lenient regulations and the cold weather, which helps keep servers cool.

Crypto mining is the process of earning cryptocurrencies by solving complex equations through the use of computers. This involves validating data blocks and also adding transaction records to the ledger where all cryptocurrency transactions are stored. It’s called a blockchain and is a public ledger. But the process involves extensive computer processing, which consumes a lot of energy.

When Lou started crypto mining, he set up his workstation at a coffee warehouse. While the warehouse required a lot of space for the coffee equipment, it didn’t need much electricity to operate it. “But they got access to a lot of electricity with a big warehouse. And we have a very small physical footprint, but we needed all of that electricity. So it was a very good marriage.”

Figueroa said that mining with fossil fuel is expensive, making it difficult to retain a profit margin.

He said crypto mining is the most economical when done through hydroelectric, geothermal or solar energy. “So if you look at all of the Bitcoin mining done in North America, about 85 per cent to 90 per cent of it is done off of green energy. And that makes it a lot cleaner than if you think about the U.S. dollar, or the petrodollar, which is very much hoisted up by the price of oil.”

According to Nasdaq, production of paper or plastic money and coins have a much larger energy footprint than cryptocurrency of the same monetary value. The energy consumption of Bitcoin mining is less than half that of the gold mining industry and less than one-fifth of what bank branches and ATMs consume, currency printing aside. Bitcoin mining also uses 0.5 per cent of the world’s grid electricity, which equals less than 0.1 per cent of all human energy production.

CBC reporter Pete Evans quotes Stanford University lecturer Jonathan Koomey saying, “It’s classic scaremongering to worry about the electricity use of new technologies. Twenty years ago, the media was full of stories about how internet usage was growing too rapidly, and reportedly destined to consume as much as half of all electricity in the world.”

So, is the crypto market a gamble or an investment?

According to 11 cryptocurrency experts (financial advisers, cryptocurrency longtime investors and researchers) interviewed for this story, it’s thorough research and a solid understanding of the market landscape that differentiates one from the other. Their consensus about newcomers in the crypto market: they need to do a lot of research before investing. Otherwise, the chances of getting scammed are very high.

Justin Wales is a crypto lawyer at K&L Gates, a global law firm. He says people need to spend hundreds of hours learning about Bitcoin to understand why it exists and realize how it solves some of the problems with government-controlled monetary systems. Exploring other projects attempting to create decentralized networks is key as well. ”At that point, you will know enough to judge where to put your money.”

Lou also offers insight to help investors make the right judgment calls. “I think one red flag is, if something is promising you returns, yeah, stay the fuck away from that. Legitimate projects do not promise you returns,” said Lou.

He says the best resource you need is a “good bullshit detector.”

“A study says that most students from elementary school all the way to university can not differentiate between actual news and what is propaganda. The most important thing is to figure that out.”

LaFrance concurs. “I wouldn’t recommend people reading the news, that’s for sure. News, specifically in this industry, is extremely manipulated both by the project owners and by other third-party people who have interests in certain investments. Ninety-nine per cent of what you see as information in the industry is oftentimes sponsored by someone without you even knowing it’s sponsored by someone.”

Another point all experts seem to agree on is to not invest borrowed money into the highly volatile market. “I don’t believe in borrowing money to purchase it (money), and I think that goes against the point of it,” said Figueroa.

For students who want to risk investing borrowed money anyway, he said to do so with student loans. “If you’re going to borrow money from someone, the government is the most accommodating. … They’re never going to bankrupt you. They’re never gonna make you sell your house. They’re gonna just wait until you can actually pay it off.”

Both sides of the cryptocurrency market — the dark and the bright — are dominated by young people. One of the main differences between people on both sides is their level of understanding of the market.

Greed and get-rich-quick approaches are amongst the leading causes of getting soft scammed. Figueroa advises to be patient. “On average, (Bitcoin) has returned 150 per cent a year. If that’s not enough for you, I don’t know what is. And if that’s not enough, then I don’t feel bad for you if you lose your money or get scammed.”

This article is not written by a financial adviser and should not be considered investing advice. Neither the publication nor the writer is responsible for any investing activity conducted based on this article.

October 28, 2021

Arts & Life Features Students Top Top stories Uncategorized

How to cope with procrastination in post secondary school, according to one expert

by Hadi Azad October 21, 2021

written by Hadi Azad

By the end of reading week, Kimberly Boissiere was feeling overwhelmed.

She had left most of her assignments to complete at the end of the week, and the mounting pressure of looming deadlines was getting to her.

Boissiere, an immigration and settlement graduate student at Ryerson University, is one of many post-secondary students who frequently experiences procrastination.

Procrastination, which is the voluntary action of postponing something that needs to be done, is a phenomena that affects between 80 and 90 per cent of students, according to a 2015 study.

Jenny Liu, a psychology professor at Ryerson University, says there are a variety of factors that may lead to procrastination.

“Perfectionistic tendencies or feeling like we can’t do something until we can do a perfect job on it can be a big contributor to procrastination,” she said. “If we feel anxious, like we are not able to perform, or have low confidence in our abilities, we can also engage in procrastination.”

Liu explains there are also external factors that stem from pressures related to family members having high expectations, or cultures that value academic achievements.

She recommends addressing the fundamental reasons of procrastination in order to combat it because everyone experiences it differently.

“Depending on what sources contribute to our procrastination, we could aim to address those, and indirectly reduce procrastination,” Liu said.

She suggests dividing giant tasks into smaller, more manageable goals, adding that breaking a task up into smaller sections will help reduce the perception of a huge undertaking. It’s also important to celebrate every step of the process as “it builds up self-esteem and confidence,”she said.

When students procrastinate, they tend to keep themselves busy doing other things to escape their reality, but researchers say that individuals should consider the negative psychological consequences — including guilt, depression, anxiety, and stress — associated with deferring the inevitable.

“I try to schedule my weeks and determine what days I will work on my assignments and what days I will relax and have time for myself,” said Boissiere.

Despite Boissiere trying to prevent procrastination by planning ahead of time, burnout can still happen. In those instances, she takes time for herself to rejuvenate her energy in order to tackle her schoolwork later.

Liu advises students not to struggle alone and to reach out for help when needed. “We might struggle for different reasons, and for those reasons, support is available.”

Seeking support is important for maintaining positive mental health, and can lead to increased energy, heightened focus, and improved self-esteem. These are qualities that can assist students both personally and academically. There are many support services available at Ryerson University. For a list of the available resources, visit: https://www.ryerson.ca/contact/student/.

October 21, 2021