Massachusetts Daily Collegian

A free and responsible press serving the UMass community since 1890

A free and responsible press serving the UMass community since 1890

Massachusetts Daily Collegian

A free and responsible press serving the UMass community since 1890

Massachusetts Daily Collegian

Morning Wood: Student hunched over laptop every day for six hours straight shocked to wake up with chronic back pain

We’re in our sciatic nerve pain era
Justin+Surgent%2F+Daily+Collegian+%282013%29
Justin Surgent/ Daily Collegian (2013)

Poor posture is truly an epidemic within the student body. While filling their noggins with the colorful, engaging knowledge of two years’ worth of remote learning, students amazingly unlearned how to sit in chairs properly. With legs hanging over the armrests, spines bent at geometrically incalculable angles and neck vertebrae compressed like a stack of Pringles, students have developed what experts call “some of the worst posture we have ever seen.”

The administration at the University of Massachusetts needs to take a more aggressive approach in encouraging students to fix their downright horrendous posture. Currently, faculty are desperately trying to find solutions to these habits, as well as determine the student demographics in which poor posture is the most severe.

Data analysts from the Manning College of Information and Computer Sciences collaborated to perform extensive research on locating the college with the highest frequency of poor posture in students. They have recently reported “the Manning College of Information and Computer Sciences has the highest frequency.”

One computer science student, found in a Student Union Center booth curled in a tight C-shaped ball, stated, “I have not moved from this position for several hours. I’d like to say that my spine is in ‘dark mode.’”

He later posted apathetically on the CampusWire CICS help forum: “In my sciatic nerve pain era rn.”

Administration encouraged computer science students to fix their posture by communicating with them in JavaScript code. In a recent widespread file created for the JavaScript IDE “Ocelot,” administration attempted to “code” the students by writing, “//check current posture if (posture  >=bad){student.sit(“sitbetter”);} else if (back >=hurts){student.sit(“juststop”);}”

Regardless of the various syntax errors, this code communiqué was a failure. UMass Administration’s CampusWire reputation score has since plummeted.

As easy as it is to blame UMass’s posture epidemic on computer science majors, it must be noted that slouching does not discriminate by major.

Administration is planning a universal program called “guerilla chiropractoring,” in which the brawniest of gym bros are tasked with locating the slouchiest of students in the library, dining halls and lecture classrooms. Brave volunteers then correct the posture of these students through “gentle” and “involuntary spinal readjustment.” This job truly embodies the historical spirit of the Minutemen, as these posture warriors are ready to get cracking at a minute’s notice.

Volunteer guerilla chiropractor Jordan “Back-breaker” McGillicudy stated, “There’s nothing better than turning some nerd into a human glowstick, y’know what I’m saying?” He added, “Sometimes I can get three of ‘em at once — I call that the old Snap Crackle Pop’ maneuver.”

Despite these efforts, the University has still been unable to make headway with the students and their stubbornly bad posture. Unless UMass administration leans into the potential of emotional and physical intimidation, the student body is going to remain a slouch-fest forever.

Vince Lumbago can be found contorted in a Student Union disc chair.

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