Every day, students are bombarded with piles of homework. Homework that gets stuffed in a backpack, just adding to the already unbearable weight of the pack.

In past generations, students have had problems fitting everything in their backpacks, from homework to textbooks to novels.

“My backpack each day is so heavy! I hate carrying it around. Just imagine how heavy it will become in the future,” freshman Nikhil Sekar said.

Sekar is a student that has been constantly frustrated at how heavy his backpack can get. He is forced to heave around loads of textbooks and home work.

However, mountains of homework may not just cause the problem of students having to carry more things, as tedious as that may be.

“I have shoulder problems from tennis already, and I’m sure carrying around my backpack doesn’t help it,” Sekar said.

According to nytimes.com, a study in Spain conducted by researchers that was published in the Archives of Disease and Childhood shows that carrying heavy backpacks can lead to back pain, including scoliosis, curvature of the spine, and chronic back pain.

These researchers assessed the back health and backpack weights of 1,403 students from the ages 12 to 17.

Of this myriad of students, more than 60 percent had backpacks weighing more than 10 percent of their own body weight, and almost 20 percent had backpacks weighing more than 15 percent of their own weight.

When researchers further evaluated the students, they found that one in four students had suffered back pain for a period longer than 15 days, while 70 percent of those in pain suffered from scoliosis.

The remaining 30 percent suffered from lower back pain or contractures.

Although it seems like it is an arduous task to lighten the load, it is possible. Online textbooks are becoming more and more popular, which will greatly lessen the burden of carrying a backpack.

Obama has even boldly stated that he would like to have all American students use online textbooks by 2017.

“Having all online textbooks would make my life so much easier. I hate carrying my textbooks around in my backpack every day,” Sekar said.

Although we currently still use more paper textbooks than online ones, schools are gradually easing into a transition to all online textbooks.