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Volu m e 6 3 , Issu e 7
A Student Publication of the Belmont Hill School
Marc h 1 2 t h, 2 0 1 5
Social Media Causes a Generation Gap at Winsor By Sea-Jay Van der Ploeg Panel Staff “I made a Facebook for one day and deleted it because it was boring! Who uses Facebook, anyway?” I overheard this snippet of conversation among a group of Lower Schoolers and pondered the greater implications of this declaration. Inspired to surf the Internet, I found a
January 2014 Princeton University study that posited that Facebook will lose 80% of users by 2017. How unlikely—or how accurate—was this claim? Is Facebook truly past its heyday? And if so, what form of popular media supplants it—or will supplant it? The revelation that Facebook may be past its prime led me to reflect upon my own personal relationship with Facebook. In Lower School, I used
my profile to post inside jokes on my friends’ walls (affirming my popularity by tagging the names of everyone involved), to share photo albums, and to chat with my friends online. Today, as a senior, I use my account mostly for social planning, creating Facebook events, chatting friends, surveying group pages, and occasionally (often) stalking other people. Younger elementary schoolers and middle
schoolers today, however, do not seem to have the same uses for the application. Perhaps I simply do not network enough with younger people, but generally speaking, I have seen younger people’s accounts less and less on Facebook. There lies some accuracy in my observations; a study by consumer research organization GlobalWebIndex published that between 2012 and 2013, the percentage of 16 – 19
year old active users dropped from 62% to 52%, and the percentage of 20 – 24 year old users dropped from 63% to 52%. So where is everyone going? My sixth grade sister RuYao Van der Ploeg explained, “My friends and I use apps like Instagram and Snapchat, and none of us really use Facebook at all.” This preference shift can be attributed to a couple trends. Continued on page 9
Deep Playoff Run for Hockey Finishes With Close Match at St. Anselm’s By Michael O’Neill Panel Staff After putting together an inspiring comeback attempt within the game’s final seventyfive seconds, the hockey team fell just short of claiming their first New England Prep title since 1990 after a 4-2 loss to Brooks this past Sunday. Belmont Hill, the number four seed in the Martin/ Earl Large School tournament, had beaten Berkshire and Thayer in the previous two rounds to reach the final against Brooks. A sizeable contingent of Belmont Hill students, alumni, faculty, parents, and friends made the trek up to St. Anselm’s hockey arena in Manchester, New Hampshire to support the hockey squad. The game got off to a defensive start, as a backand-forth first period ended scoreless. Both teams struggled to break through in the second period as well, though Belmont
Look Inside Poetry Fest pg 2 New Roles for Winsor Administrators pg 4 Snow days pg 6 Climate Myths Debunked pg 9 Drake review pg 13 Squash Nationals pg 17
Hill killed a power play after a captain and departing senior Loop cheeringly them on wildly, holding penalty call. With just Charlie Barrow gave Belmont the side nearly tied the game under eight minutes to go be- Hill a glimmer of hope, tipping up on several close shots before fore the break however, Brooks one into the back of the net off Brooks sealed the victory with snagged the first goal of an empty-netter with just the game and took the 1-0 under a minute to go. Relead into the locker room. gardless of the end result, The third period the team put in an outseemed to breathe new life standing effort in what was into the game, as a total the last hockey game at of five goals were scored Belmont Hill for all of the in the ensuing eighteen team’s seniors. The travelminutes. Two minutes ing fans stayed behind to after the restart, Brooks give the team and Coach doubled their lead, then McCarthy a standing ovaadded another goal 30 tion for their outstanding seconds after the resultseasonal performances. ing face-off. It didn’t look The road to St. Angood for the boys in blue, selm’s was an impressive but in true Belmont Hill and entertaining one for fashion, the team refused The team celebrate with the Loop after their the Belmont Hill squad. to surrender. The team exciting 5-4 semi-final win vs. Thayer They opened the tournapiled on in attack for the ment by beating #5 seed final fifteen minutes, nearly scor- fellow captain Charlie McCon- Berkshire on the back of Charlie ing on a power play and later on nell’s assist. Just twenty seconds McConnell who notched a hat a 2-vs-1 while shorthanded, only of game time later, Belmont Hill trick in the match. The semito be stopped by the Brooks goal- added a second, and the come- final matchup against Thayer, ie. With 2:15 left on the clock, back was officially on. With the who had knocked out top seed
Brunswick in the first round, was even more thrilling, a 5-4 affair that saw three goals being scored in each period. Thayer jumped out to an early 1-0 in less than a minute, but fellow Dartmouth committees Charley Michalowski, ‘15, and Sam Hesler, ‘17, combined to score all five of Belmont Hill’s goals and lead them on the path to victory. Hesler, who announced his intention to play hockey at Dartmouth just last week, grabbed a hat trick for himself on the day. The hockey team this year was one that really came together at the right time, playing its best hockey just as the post-season approached. Though unable to collect the tournament win, the side gave it their all right up to the final whistle and can rest easy knowing their performance this season will not go unheralded. A big round of applause for Coach McCarthy, his staff, and all of the players on this year’s team. ☐
Boston Buried under Record Amounts of Snow By Susy Liu, Claudia Meyer, & Hailey Fuchs Panel Staff Ten foot snow banks. Cars shrouded in white. Five foot icicles hanging from snow-laden buildings. Boston is up to its neck in snow, forcing residents to shovel driveways, sidewalks, and streets again and again and again. Thanks to four massive snowstorms in two weeks, February set the record for the snowiest month in Boston since the first recorded winter snowfall in 1872. After Winter Storm Neptune dropped another foot of snow over Valentine’s Day weekend, snow totals reached 58.5 inches for the month and 95.7 inches for the season. The snowstorm brought winter 2015 less than a foot away from surpassing 1995-1996’s 107.6 inches
of snow and becoming the snowiest winter Boston has ever seen. The Massachusetts government has tried its best to keep up with the onslaught of snow. On February 8th, Mayor Walsh announced a state of emergency and set parking bans that lasted weeks. During Winter Storm Neptune, Massachusetts dispatched 3,366 crews to clear the snow, which was shipped to snow farms for lack of space. As the snow farms reached their full capacity, crews began melting truckloads of snow and considered dumping it in the Boston Harbor as a last resort. The massive post-blizzard clean-up cost was inevitable--Massachusetts spent around 7 million cleaning up after Neptune, adding to the 37 million dollars already spent on snow removal. The extreme weather has forced the city to shut down, dis-
rupting daily life. The past few weeks have been a vicious cycle of snow emergencies, plowing, flight cancellations, and school and MBTA closings. Flooding has caused streets to shut down, and power outages have affected hundreds of people. Roofs of houses and buildings have col-
lapsed under the sheer weight of the snow, and the number of carbon monoxide incidents has increased due to blocked heating vents. The MBTA’s incapacitation has only exacerbated the issues that the snow has brought to Boston this year. Continued on page 5
Faith Danglo ’15 achieves internet fame shoveling snow
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