By: Justin Paxton | Contributor
The current COVID-19 pandemic has had a drastic effect on millions of people, but how has it affected students? Zoom has been implemented across the nation and even the world, but online schooling affects a student’s ability to learn.
Bailey Manning, student in the USA College of Medicine, feels she is receiving an inadequate education to achieve that goal.
“Medical school is extremely difficult without Zoom learning, Zoom makes it exponentially harder to learn. I don’t feel like I’m able to retain information learning from a computer screen,” Manning said.
As a first-year medical school student, all she knows is the struggle to learn every facet of the human body over a computer screen.
Zoom provides opportunities to meet with whomever you want, whenever you want without having to be face to face. It’s a video meeting platform used for business meetings, hangouts from across the world, or classes online. According to Zoom, they help businesses and organizations bring their teams together in a frictionless environment to get more done.
But with this new type of learning comes new problems students face. What are the effects? First off, Zoom is isolating. Due to the pandemic, students have to socially isolate, yet still, go to class and Zoom takes this isolation to a whole new level. According to a Forbes article, humans live off of social interaction. We need those connections to have a stable mind and because of COVID and social distancing, we are forced to Zoom.
Forbes states, “Instead of bonding people and giving them energy, [Zoom] isolates participants from real human connection and makes them more fatigued.” This results in the common term known as Zoom Fatigue.
Andrea Vavrinek, a freshman at South, not only has to deal with the woes of virtual learning, but she also has to deal with the fact that her college experience is being hindered as well. The countless hours on the computer screen are keeping her from developing relationships in-person classes would provide.
“I moved down here to learn a lot and make long-lasting relationships, but virtual learning has put a damper on both of those things,” said Vavrinek.
South students, along with millions worldwide, feel the effects of virtual learning, which begs the question: How does “Zoom U” affect you? Whether it’s Zoom Fatigue or mental health, there needs to be hope for a sense of normalcy in the future. Future generations do not need to feel the effects of virtual learning.
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