“DING DING”, There goes my phone again, continuously bombarding me with messages, notifying me when someone posts a photo on Instagram and distracting me from my studies. Being distracted while on Zoom or Google Meets is much easier than many people realize. Students who tend to doodle a lot during their classes on campus may have a much more difficult time focusing on virtual classes. The lack of ability to focus on virtual classes is a problem as students who are attending Zooms on their laptops still have their phones and tablets in close reach. Whereas in class or on campus where the moment you take your phone out, you’d get in trouble, or you simply wouldn’t have access to your phone as some teachers collect any electronic devices as soon as students walk into the classroom.

Many students often divert their attention to social media instead of working on an assignment or paying attention in class. A student I interviewed claims “I’m looking on either Reddit or Tumblr during Zoom, the second I get bored”. Another student says they start to watch random videos on YouTube when they become bored. It’s easy to scroll down your feed and check all your messages, seeing everything you missed; there is no one there to yell you to get off your phone and start paying attention.

Although students see and hear everything that’s happening on their screens, a majority of the time their mind is elsewhere. Maybe it’s just a class they don’t enjoy, where it’s much more difficult to pay attention to the teacher and what is going on in the midst of the lesson. For instance, some students have a T.V. in their room; a favorite show might be on, or they find something interesting on a program playing in the background. Even just the noise of a show could make someone’s eye twitch back and forth from their T.V. to their laptops or phones.

This especially could be damaging in terms of a student’s overall grades. Classes that students already have trouble understanding the lessons, also have a chance of getting distracted easily. The moment students get distracted in those classes, the much harder time they’ll have making up what they missed or didn’t understand. Those who get distracted easily, tend to fall behind and become overwhelmed as they drown in schoolwork. This goes to show that the students who tend to be more absent-minded and easily diverted will face more hardships paying attention during virtual classes.