Tag Archives: Opinion

Dangers of technology should be taken seriously

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by Amori Matthews

Some people believe that technology is the key to our growth or success. However, I believe that it causes us to be too dependent on it. Technology can be a good thing but I think it has caused more problems rather than simply making our lives easier. Many people want to talk about the growth and the good of technology but they don’t list all the problems that come along with using technology.

The University of the People article, “Society Is Too Dependent On Technology,” claims that it is about the negative effects but it doesn’t really go into detail, making it seem like not a big deal. The author states that “Technology can be a powerful tool when used correctly.” I believe they say this to downplay the negative effects and portray them as minor and easy to control. The article also uses innuendo by saying that technology use “can reduce face-to-face communication,” sort of hinting at social damage without arguing about the long-term consequences or effects. Additionally, when the author states, “studies show that technology affects how people think and behave”, the author does not cite any sources–trying to make the statement seem factual without any evidence to back it up.

UA Grantham’s “Technology: The Good, The Bad, The Ugly” kind of does the same thing. They also talk about some of the problems technology can cause but considers them as small, manageable, or unimportant. The author describes serious issues such as “privacy loss” and “cyber security threats” but refers to them as “challenges of the digital age”, minimizing the potential harm caused by these problems. This article also uses innuendo when the author states, “society is increasingly becoming more and more reliant on technology”, suggesting that we are too dependent but without fully going into detail about it. Furthermore, I think the author uses a lot of truth surrogates–for example, “Technology has transformed nearly every aspect of our modern life.” This claim has little to no evidence to back it up but people agree with it automatically without calling it into question.

Lastly, The United Nations article, “Impact Of Digital Technologies,” strongly supports technological advancements while limiting the discussions of its risks. While the article does mention unequal access to technology, it goes right back to the benefits, using innuendo, downplayers, and truth surrogates. The author downplays global inequalities by stating that “digital technologies are made to accelerate progress towards sustainable development”, basically treating them as secondary issues. The UN also uses innuendo when it claims that “countries that fail to adopt digital technologies are at risk of being left behind.” This statement suggests that if you don’t improve your technology or follow global trends you’re basically irresponsible. Finally, the author uses truth surrogates, stating that “digital technologies are transforming societies worldwide.” Even though this claim is broad and authoritative, it still lacks evidence as to how technology is transforming different societies worldwide.

In conclusion, while I still think technology is bad and causes more problems than good, many people and companies will have different opinions. While I still think people should talk more about the downsides and actually have studies to back up their claims or reasoning, I think people only see the good in technology since it makes everything easier to manage and do.

Cell phone ban is unfair (OPINION)

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by Zander Hatzigeorgalis

Baltimore City Public Schools began enforcing a new policy this school year where mobile phones are banned from being used in schools from bell to bell during the school day. The ban is being enforced in every public school in Baltimore City and is part of a growing trend that is spreading to many school districts across the United States.

Many teachers are against this policy and a lot of students are as well. Many students will get sneakier with using their phones, but their phones will be taken away if they are caught using them.

This phone policy has gotten out of hand. Let’s say if I had an accident in my pants and needed to text my father to tell ask him to bring me a new pair. An administrator would take my phone away from me. No matter how many times I tell them why I need to use it, they do NOT care.

Phones are not even allowed during lunch. As someone who cannot handle loud noises, I need headphones to help me in noisy environments like the cafeteria. Sometimes I feel too mentally drained to even communicate with other students. If I were to text my father about something, I would need to go into the bathroom stall, which I hate, since bathrooms aren’t always the cleanest.

I am a student who struggles with school, not because of my phone or headphones, but because it’s hard to focus in some classes due to how poorly the teachers teach me and how boring the classes are. I personally think that the students who struggle like I do should have music playing in their headphones during individual work time or should be allowed to just glance at their phone to look at the time without their phones being taken by the administrators.

I feel like people focus on the wrong thing rather than the actual bad stuff out in the world like students taking their own lives, school shootings, our rights being stripped away, and so much more, and yet they’re worried about phones being a “distraction”? I really think this is so damn unfair. I abhor everything about the phone policy and I abhor how people focus on phones rather than on traumatizing things that cause Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). There are other distracting things out there–for example, there is this one student in my class who can never shut up.

Phones aren’t the problem. The School Board should end the ban on cell phones and start focusing on the issues that really matter.

Women should have the right to choose an abortion (OPINION)

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Pro-Choice demonstration from 2018 (Photo: Paul Becker – Wikimedia Commons)

by Ashley Sarmiento Rodriguez

Abortion–let’s talk about it. Abortions are a choice all women in Maryland have if they get pregnant and they don’t want to keep it. Abortions are given in two ways: a pill you take or a surgery. Some types of abortion can’t be performed after a certain amount of time of the fetus being formed.

In my opinion, it’s good that women have ways to at least choose whether or not to have a kid because there are a lot of woman who get pregnant without planning and don’t really have stable income or homes to give to a baby so they do what they know is best and get an abortion.

I understand that many people are strongly against abortion and say women should keep their babies, but at the end of the day, the people with all those opinions aren’t actually the one who will be having to take responsibility for these babies, so they honestly shouldn’t have a say in the decision of any woman who chooses to have an abortion. Also, no woman should be shamed or looked down on because they had an abortion. It should be an option for all pregnant woman and nobody–especially no man–should even think they have a say in what a woman can do with her own body.

A woman’s right to choose used to be protected by the U.S. Supreme Court decision in Roe v. Wade, but in 2022 that ruling was overturned, giving state governments the power to ban abortions. I’ve been researching this issue and I’ve seen that there are a lot of states where abortions are banned or heavily restricted, such as Alabama, Arkansas, Idaho, Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, Tennessee, Missouri, etc. I find that so upsetting that all these places have banned something so many woman need. Why keep producing more humans to be raised by people who aren’t ready to be responsible for taking care of a kid or kids? It’s just better to at least have a solution for women who know they can’t raise a child and for women to have a say in what they want.

Patterson should get rid of its uniform policy (OPINION)

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by Ashley Sarmiento Rodriguez

Patterson High School has had a school uniform policy for years and many students, including myself, don’t agree with it.

One reason why Patterson High School made students start wearing uniforms is because there used to be a lot of students who would go into neighborhoods and mess around and do disturbing things and with the uniform you’d be able to identify where they are coming from. Another reason they added the uniforms is because there were some students wearing inappropriate clothes. The main reason why they made uniforms is to stop outsiders who don’t belong here from coming in.

However, I think that’s dumb because the school used to make us scan ID cards before coming in and if you don’t scan, you can’t come in–so why stop now? It’s so much more reasonable to do that than to require students to wear uniforms, because anybody can wear a Patterson shirt and khaki pants and pass as a student. That could be even more dangerous because as long as you are wearing anything from Patterson, teachers think you’re from here. Besides, there are many people still in the school not wearing uniforms despite the uniform policy existing, so if they really wanted to see if anybody was coming in who shouldn’t, they still can’t tell.

I disagree with the uniform policy. I think that’s not fair that because of certain students wearing things they shouldn’t, the whole school needs to basically get punished for the actions of a few. Yes, they can say it’s for identification, but there are IDs that can hang around our neck and many other ways to identify Patterson students beside uniforms.

I think they should take uniforms away or make it optional because not everyone wants to wear the same pants every day or the same two shirts all week and many students can’t afford to buy additional uniforms. If someone decides to wear something inappropriate, then let them get punished on their own because what a handful of students do should not result in the whole school is getting punished.

Another reason why I don’t agree with the uniforms is because they’re just short sleeve shirts. The building is cold and even when people are wearing hoodies under the uniform shirt, school staff members ask you to take it off. For now, they’ve run out of the uniform sizes and only have big clothes that don’t fit me. Why would I or anyone want to wear that every day?

Yet another reason why I don’t agree with the uniform policy is that this year they have been making it a much bigger priority than it was the year before and not everyone is able to go before school even starts to pick up their uniform. Then, when we’re actually in school trying to get them, it’s much harder. I didn’t have anything for the first few days of school and went around asking for the uniform but they never had right sizes. Then if I wanted to get any Patterson hoodies or sweatpants, I’d have to pay them myself. They don’t even give out the khaki pants now that school started; I have to go buy my own. There are just a lot of things that not everyone has transportation or money to get.

My friend, Yeimmi, another student who goes to Patterson High School, also does not agree with the school uniforms.

“I don’t like the uniforms because they have only given me a big shirt that doesn’t fit me and I’ve been yelled at a few times to change at school.”, she said. “It’s uncomfortable.”

“I didn’t have time to go get the uniform before school even started and since then I’ve only gotten an XXL shirt.”, Yeimmi added. “I feel like they’re useless and there’s no point in having them. It makes no difference.”

For all these reasons, I think that Patterson should get rid of its uniform policy and let students have the freedom to wear what they want, as long as it doesn’t violate the District’s dress code.

School lunch needs improvement (OPINION)

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by Wilfredo Portillo-Quinones

School lunch is a very important part of school and a major topic that needs to be discussed. Currently, school lunch at Patterson is not enough, nor is it nutritious.

I think we should improve our school lunches because it would benefit everyone. It’s something a lot of our students come to school for. When lunch is good, it is one of the most enjoyable parts of school. I think improving school lunch would bring more students to Patterson, because the quality of school lunches is a factor behind children and teenagers changing schools. If we were to improve the lunches, we’d be able to promote that as one more reason why young people should enroll at Patterson.

Whenever people talk about school, one of the most common topics that come up is school lunch and whether it’s good or not. I think it would be beneficial for us to add more food to the plates or give it some sort of improvement that could bring in more students. It would also be nice to add more nutrients to our lunches because a major health factor is whether or not we get enough nutrients in our school lunches.


By improving school food, we should go off of the suggestions made by our students about what they want, specifically the students who usually eat at school. A lot of times students don’t have food at home and they come to school to eat and have lunch. When they don’t get enough or the food is bad, they end up not eating enough, and it’s sad. Although it isn’t the schools problem, we want our students to feel good at school and feel like they have more reasons to come. Another major point of this would be including healthier foods, like more salad bars or fresh fruit.


I think the best way for our school to understand and change would be to have a poll where students can vote on whether or not we should change and improve the school lunches or keep them the same. I think it would be very popular once students understand the changes, because we’re so used to school lunches in their current state. A major change would stir up a lot of activity for our school.

These are the main reasons why our schools should improve school lunches. A lot of us want these changes made and there are many programs working for these kinds of improvements in schools across the country.

Voting age should be lowered to 16

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By Wilfredo Portillo-Quinones

We learn in school that voting is one of the most important rights of citizenship. Yet most high school students are not allowed to vote because they are under 18. I believe that 16 and 17-year-olds should have the right to vote. As a teenager we have fresh perspectives with new thoughts and ideas that can add to what our government already has in mind for the country.

Our current government is run primarily by older people. When the two main candidates for President are the oldest to ever run in history, it feels like we’re lowering our standards. There needs to be a better mind at our highest office of government, especially when we’re making enemies out of other countries and military forces. I think if teenagers could vote, we would vote for a president with an open mind and someone who can relate to our ideas for the country.
Our country needs a leader who has an open mind about things and isn’t quick to make enemies. We as teenagers could support our government with ideas and feel better about our government if we knew we had a president who could relate to us.

There are claims that young people don’t care or even think about our government power and that is false. A lot of young people care about our government, as studies show. According to the website youthrights.org, people of the age of 17-18 vote more than people ages 20-40. In 2014, Chicago allowed their youth to vote and 75% of eligible people ages 16-17 voted compared to 54% of people ages 20-50, showing us that our youth care at least as much as older people do. In Baltimore, we let our youth vote for our mayor in one election and people of the age of 17 voted 35% compared to 36% of people 18 and older, showing us that teens will vote at more or less the same level as older people. This proves that our youth care as much as older people do. The same website also shows data that shows that contrary to popular belief, high school students actually know more on average about the government that older people. This makes sense when you consider that we are learning about government in school and the information is fresh in our minds. Despite some people’s claims that teenagers are too ignorant to vote, the truth is that youth have open minds, are as well-informed as other age groups, and should have the same rights as other Americans. We also care about our country and who our leaders are.

There are many organizations fighting for youth rights and they’ve proven the facts that teenagers have the right ideas for our country. We should support and fight for teenage voting rights. Voting rights for teenagers would create many new opportunities for us to become active citizens and make our country better. I hope these specific facts will convince you that teenagers above the age of 16 do care about our country and should be given the right to vote.