Try to wrack your mind of memories and imagine yourself as a 10-year-old again. Now you’re probably imagining yourself with your friends playing video games or watching YouTube videos, but what happened to the time of young innocence where the world’s greatest catastrophe was losing a game of tag instead of a game of Mario Kart? Remember those carefree times when everyone actually interacted with one another and went outside to play? Coming back to the present, we are stuck in an era surrounded by technology that eats away at our social life.

Way too often, we end up sacrificing our social interactions for other needs. So many factors, such as an excessive amount of work or use of technology, can contribute to how people interact in current society. This can be alarming for many students because people must know how to communicate with others in the real world. According to the National Association of School Psychologists (NASP), students with poor social skills have expressed difficulties communicating with parents, teachers and peers. Especially with peers, these students can “evoke highly negative responses from others that lead to high levels of peer rejection.” Oftentimes, this can lead to bullying, or even school violence. A lack of social skills, however, can cause even greater consequences. Again, according to the NASP, this includes signs of depression, aggression, anxiety, poor academic performance and higher involvement in the criminal justice system as adults. Students must acknowledge these signs to understand the need for social skills. This is our future, and our future must start from the foundation of active involvement in school. Though schools are trying to offer students aid in social participation, students often ignore these opportunities.

At CHS, there are more resources being provided to become socially active on a daily basis. In addition to clubs after school, opportunities are also offered during class. Teachers are now trying to emphasize the importance of social participation as a larger percent of our grade. Stressing this need for social skills will not only improve the performance of students, but it could also achieve a better learning environment. The NASP states that social proficiency can help anger and conflict management, peer negotiation, effective communication and acceptance of diverse groups. Improvement in these areas could potentially decrease the amount of bullying between peers. By taking advantage of these opportunities, as mentioned by stopbullying.gov, a federal government website managed by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, students can learn different types of social skills to prevent bullying, which can create a much safer and a much more positive environment at school. For example, if Bob punches Billy in the face, there must be a reason behind it; however, if Bob had known to tell Billy how he had felt, in a kind manner of course, then this could have been solved by using communication rather than violence and tears.

Ultimately, CHS students need to realize the importance of social skills, especially now that CHS is starting to provide more opportunities, and also the significance of its consequences. We should try to integrate more social importance in our lives in and out of school. Don’t overlook the importance of social skills, because who knows what we could be capable if we just take the time to talk to each other? While other ways of communication, such as technology, are important in society, we shouldn’t let it dictate or overtake how we interact with other people. Our generation will be the next future, and if we don’t start working with one another now, when will we ever start? Our collaborations now could carry on to be something big in the in the long run. So, start now. Put down your cell phones and mobile devices and start interacting with other people in your lives. It could surprise you by how many problems would be solved.

The views in this column do not necessarily reflect the views of the HiLite staff. Reach Carolyn Zhang at [email protected].