Over to you

Alan Norman, De La Salle College, Dundalk, Co Louth

Alan Norman, De La Salle College, Dundalk, Co Louth

Television shows more boring sports than action sports. Boxing, for example, is an interesting sport and is not on the television as much as football and snooker.

Young people today are more interested in water-skiing, snowboarding, BMXs on the vert ramp and other extreme sports. People are starting to get sick of football because that is all that is on. Golf has to be one of the most boring sports of all: some rich men in fancy clothes hitting a ball, then spending the rest of the time looking for it. Also snooker is very boring: and they spend far more time looking at what they are going to hit than actually hitting the ball. Tennis would be the most interesting of all the boring sports. I think that it is robbery that when you get Sky TV you still end up paying more money for an important game or a top boxing match. Also most of the good games and sports are on Sky, but some people cannot afford Sky so they cannot see the good stuff.

Sarah Bartley, Eureka Secondary School, Kells, Co Meath

READ MORE

Are mobile phones a fashion accessory? I know every teenager is going to hate me for this, but yes, they are. Admit it!

An IMS survey for Face Up magazine showed that more than half of Irish teenagers own a mobile phone. And the average number of text messages sent by a teenager in a day is 10!

A look at the covers you can get for mobile phones shows that they are, in fact, a fashion accessory. Ringer tones can now be got with new music releases, them songs from films and so on. Pictures messages can be sent using mobile phones - and I think these features are targeted at teenagers who have more time to make use of these facilities.

Teenagers fork out huge amounts of money unnecessarily for the latest model and coolest style. This puts a certain amount of financial and peer pressure on teenagers. Being a teenager myself, I know mobile phones have a certain necessity - but I think they are more a fashion accessory from a teenager's perspective. Don't you?

Write to media scope by posting your comments to Newspaper in the Classroom, The Irish Times, 1116 D'Olier Street, Dublin 2, or faxing them to (01) 679 2789. Be sure to include your name, address and school, plus phone numbers for home and school. Or you can use the Internet and e-mail us at mediapage@irishtimes.ie

media scope is a weekly media studies page for use in schools.

Faxback: Worksheets and other materials are available to teachers who place group orders through their schools. The worksheets are sent to all subscribing schools via the automatic faxback system. This system will re-try an engaged line up to four times.

If you do not receive material by Wednesday morning, and you have a touch-tone fax machine, please use it to dial (01) 670 9709. Follow the recorded instructions and material will be faxed to your machine. If you have a pulse-dialling machine, refer to your fax manual for details on how to set it for touchtone dialling. If you have problems, telephone (01) 679 2022, ext 8568 or 8580.

For group orders, FREEPHONE 1-800-798884.

media scope is edited by Harry Browne.