As everyone knows, high school students often struggle with procrastination and distraction – often choosing to spend their time doing useless activities and endlessly scrolling through social media. Rather than finish homework now and waste time later, it is often so much easier to push back work, waste time, or simply do nothing. Though this may be a problem, two of the most popular ways that students procrastinate work, especially during school hours, are playing chess online and taking quizzes on JetPunk.com. Though these activities take away from schoolwork, they are not entirely bad. Chess is known for strengthening strategy skills, problem-solving, and augmenting intelligence, and JetPunk quizzes are nearly all educational. The most popular quizzes on JetPunk are their signature General Knowledge tests; with 217 and counting, each General Knowledge quiz features questions that range from easy to incredibly niche, and are often one-word answers, fill in the blanks, and sometimes resemble riddles. Even though they can sometimes serve as a distraction from one’s work, students are still learning as they play chess and General Knowledge, making these distractions altogether not too bad.
Online chess, which rose to popularity among the senior class during the 2020-2021 school year, due to the creation of the student-run chess club, was very popular among seniors, particularly the boys. Though, times have changed and chess club co-founder, Nanda Murali, says “chess club was once a fun way for students to meet up and hang out, all while enjoying the game of chess. However…we have now left that era in the past as we move towards the JetPunk-filled future.”
Likely the more popular of the two is JetPunk’s General Knowledge quizzes. JetPunk is easy to use, quick to find and has thousands of quizzes, not limited to General Knowledge. From map labeling to translating Greek gods to Roman, and anything and everything in between, it is easy to get distracted and lost on JetPunk.com. Plus, it is entertaining, especially when procrastinating work. “It’s so fun,” says senior Carson Patten, “I love testing my general knowledge and learning something new.” JetPunk is essentially the perfect time killer for students who have completed their work or have nothing to do because of how much students have fun and learn while playing.
Even though distraction is bad and being more productive may be the ideal, overall the popular online distractions that students participate in during school are, all together, not too bad. Rather than waste time mindlessly scrolling or other useless and unproductive activities, students are passing time by playing educational games, whether they like that fact or not, and as long as they are played at appropriate times, these games should not be discouraged.
This Nanda guy never misses!