Why Does Hedonism Not Help Students?

What Is Hedonism?

Hedonism is the moral theory which states that pleasure, especially the satisfaction of human desire, is the best good and the appropriate objective of human life. The hedonistic school of thought teaches that humans got created solely to enjoy life’s daily pleasures. Hedonism also subscribes that humans should avoid pain and suffers at all costs by engaging in pleasurable activities.

Hedonism in Schools

Hedonism, albeit a school of thought, is now a way of life for numerous people in the world today. The behaviour can get found in people from all walks of life. However, one of the places where it is often a bad influence is in schools and colleges.

Students who are in schools where they are far away from their parents often are prone to hedonistic tendencies. With their new-found independence, they often get tempted (most of the time through peer pressure) to seek pleasure and avoid the sufferings and sacrifices that come with college.

Types of Hedonistic Behaviors in Schools

For most people, college is such a stressful period in their lives. Academic psychologists and school counsellors admit that most people face their most significant life challenges in college. Classes are usually tricky. Staying away from the home that you have known for years is a scary prospect. Your financial support is never enough.

Sometimes, making new friends can be as challenging as climbing the steepest mountains. For the first time in your life, you are solely in charge of your life. Any decision you take will affect your future. Students get faced with lots of stressful situations. Most of them feel that some of the best methods of nullifying these stressful feelings are to engage in hedonistic behaviours.

The following are some of the most common forms of hedonistic behaviours in students.

1. Unlawful Parties and Other Social Events

Most students partake in many unlawful campus activities just because they find their schooling activities too tricky. While their upbringing influences most of them, other innocent students get stuck as a result of peer pressure. Therefore, they engage in other detrimental campus activities such as unlawful parties and other related events. The effects of these illicit activities involve missed classes, distractions, inability to cope with your academics, lagging behind your classmates, and confusion.

2. Theft

Theft is a type of hedonistic activity for most people. They get lots of pleasure from stealing from other people. Some students engage in theft in schools to feed their hedonistic lifestyles. Various types of thefts involve stealing, pilfering, robbing, and forceful taking of other people’s belongings. The consequences of theft in schools can ruin a student’s academics and, subsequently, their lives in the future. Once started, theft is complicated to stop and often ends in tragic situations.

3. Gang Activities

Students are independent and, therefore, prone to all sorts of peer pressures in school. In colleges and universities, it gets often reported that gang activities subsist due to peer pressure. People force their friends to join them in gang activities.

Most of the time, they get lured into these nefarious groups by getting rewarded by extremely pleasurable activities. Most students are easily tempted to gangs if they are hedonistic. The consequences of gang-related actions are both a threat to the academics and the life of the student.

4. Smoking, Drinking, and Involvement in Hard Drugs

Other students take to smoking and drinking to help subdue their academic challenges. Students often get lured into the taking of hard drugs and painkillers by their school mates. They find themselves abusing drugs and hard substances to get through a rough patch in their academics. Excessive smoking, drinking, and hard drugs can critically affect students’ academics and their lives in the long term.

Some of the immediate effects of such behaviours include psychological problems, mental breakdown, significant health problems, accidental overdose, and death. In colleges, especially in regions where hard drugs are prevalent among young adults, numerous students have died due to drug overdose.

5. Unlawful Sexual Behavior

While in college, most students find it challenging to handle their new-found freedom. Hence, they engage in so many nefarious activities. One of these activities is the hedonistic tendency to engage in illicit sexual behaviour. Known as sexual debauchery, students can get overwhelmed to indulge in such acts as casual romantic relationships, unlawful sex, rape, indecent assault, and other varying forms of this behaviour.

The immediate effects of such hedonistic practices include depression, psychological problems, getting infected with sexually transmitted infections, protracted health problems, unwanted pregnancies, abortion, social problems, suicide, and other problems related to one’s academics. Unlawful sexual behaviours among students have ruined the lives of bright young male and female students all across the world.

6. Indulging Excessively in Leisure Activities

Technology has changed the way we live our lives. Unfortunately, this same beloved technology has become a threat to students and education in general. Pleasure seeking students to see the internet as a haven of pleasurable activities. Students find it challenging to focus on their academics with the myriads of entertainment they can get from the internet.

Compared to the colourful and dynamic changing world of the internet, their academics seem dull. Apparently, for most research students, the internet is a goldmine for resources to help achieve academic excellence. The irony of the internet as a useful educational tool is that it brings lots of distraction.

7. Consequences of Hedonism in Students

Hedonism in students has led to the ruining and destruction of lives. The school (especially at the tertiary level) is a place where manners get picked. This trait can either make or break the student. Unfortunately, students who take to excessive hedonistic behaviours, barely recover from it. It is such a distraction from the student’s academics that it makes catching up very hard.

Hedonistic behaviour among students has led to various unwanted consequences. These consequences include arrests, deaths, rustication, drop-outs, long term health complications, self-esteem issues, long term depression, psychological problems, and permanent deformation.

Conclusion

Hedonism is not such a bad habit. It is good to engage in pleasurable things every once in a while. However, excessive indulgence often leads to most of the above-listed consequences. In colleges, where students have unchecked freedom, hedonism is such a threat to their bright futures. This threat to their future is the reason; gratification will never be of help to students. To this end, parents should closely monitor their children while in school.