I have developed somewhat of a peculiar addiction during my years as a student of the Lower Merion School District. While I have not conducted any scientific studies or obtained any statistical data, I have a suspicion that my particular affliction is shared with a fairly large portion of my peers at both Harriton and Lower Merion. This habit is not considered truly dangerous, but many of those who suffer from it can attest to its negative effects on sanity and self-esteem.

Have you guessed it yet? I am addicted to checking PowerSchool.

No matter what kind of student you are – overachiever, underachiever, some weird combination of those two (as I believe most of us are) – you have probably empathized with me at one point or another during your high school (or middle school?) career.

Maybe one of your teachers took longer to enter your midterm than you had expected, and you frantically entered your username and password every hour, on the hour, until you learned your grade. Perhaps he or she was slow with the posting that one essay that was going to decide your final grade for the year (and by final grade for the year, I mean your entire life), and you found comfort and solace in staring at that impeccably organized blue table. There’s also a good chance that, like me, you check PowerSchool six, seven, or maybe twenty two thousand times a day for no real reason.

I check PowerSchool even when I am aware of my grade on an assignment, but the teacher hasn’t put it up yet. I check PowerSchool on my phone between classes. I check PowerSchool when I am supposed to be doing work in other classes (oh, the irony). I wish that I could preserve my dignity and tell you that I did not, at least, check PowerSchool once during the summer. But I did. Maybe more than once.

Blame it on our generation’s constant need for mental stimulation and new information. I’m also addicted to checking Twitter and Facebook, to the point where it is almost a compulsion. My extensive study of this phenomenon (reading a single magazine article) has led me to conclude that it could be possible that I get the same sort of endorphin rush from checking PowerSchool as I do from checking social networking websites.

Blame it on what some see as our society’s dangerous preoccupation with grades, test scores, and prestigious colleges. You could fill a library with books or spend a day watching documentaries that condemn this particular “national obsession”.

In the end, I know that I can’t really blame anyone for my PowerSchool addiction other than myself. As much as I hope that I can change my behavior and focus more on enjoying life (and even getting some work done), I believe that this habit may be too hard too break. If senior year is anything like my past three years at Harriton, I will probably end up spending more time checking PowerSchool than I will doing school work.