Vanessa Brum ’23
At this point, we’ve all become some sort of technology experts, right? We spent a good chunk of our 2020 spring semester online, and some of us have even been online for the entirety of this year. This was a big shift for us, but we managed. Something important to acknowledge is how learning online can negatively impact a student’s mental health, along with their learning in general. Not all of us can focus on a glowing screen for long periods at a time. Personally, I can stare at my laptop for about 15 minutes before the squirrel standing outside of my window starts looking pretty interesting, and I know I’m not the only one. I also know I’m not the only one who doesn’t love doing school in my room alone, since a big perk of physical school is seeing your friends. It’s important to not feel so alone. A good way to combat this in online school is Facetime friends! Play some online games together, or just do homework together, because even though you’re physically alone, it’ll feel a lot better when you can hear and talk to someone else.
As for your mental health, if you feel overwhelmed, or feel like your anxiety is at an all time high because of online school, know you aren’t alone. Those feelings are perfectly valid, and even normal. A big disadvantage to online learning is declining mental health, you may feel unmotivated to do your work, or that the workload is a lot more than it was in person. Your friends and teachers have your back and we all want you to succeed. Our school is nothing if not a community.