Caleb Conklin

Opinions Editor

Posted Oct. 19, 2026

Students are declining in performance as the world adapts to the increasing use of technology, leading to lowered standards for a high school diploma.

“I grew up on 22 minute sitcoms, and my attention span was curated to be 20 minutes,” vice principal Rolando Florez said. “Tik Tok videos are what, 30 seconds long? 30 second attention spans are changing the way we all think.”

With phones being normalized for children with ages as low as eight years old, students are growing up strongly connected to these devices. Spending hours every day glued to a phone is leading to a decline in kids’ social skills and ability to concentrate for longer periods of time. While a significant amount of students are determined with purpose, many are falling behind; unable to focus enough to catch back up. Given the effort to be a “star student” and how far someone can fall, it’s easy to see why some students choose to go for the bare minimum.

In these situations where students are struggling, it’s likely for the student to be absent from school. Douglas has a new grading policy in many freshmen classes: 87.5% is now considered an A–and most of all–a 50% has become the minimum requirement to pass. Combined with the ‘70% assessments, 30% classwork’ system, students no longer have to attend most of their classes to gain their diploma.

All of these factors create a cycle–students are trying less, fewer kids are graduating and the standards are brought down. Educators must juggle what is more important: students passing their classes, or students actually receiving a good education. No answer is perfect, but ignoring the issue all together by changing the standards is likely causing more harm than not.

If we continue to make everything easier for ourselves with technology and turn a blind eye to its repercussions, we are choosing to allow younger generations to not develop. Technology may be getting smarter, but we are declining. What will our world look like in the future if schools are sending out effort-lacking, uneducated teens to fill complex jobs that we depend on?