Every morning, many students wake up before the sun rises to be on time for their first period, which begins at 7:40 a.m. for Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. Even after the school day is over, students dread knowing that they have to wake up early again the next day. We stare at our electronic devices for seven hours a day for our classes and are forced to spend even more time online to complete our homework. Unfortunately for students, this is our lifestyle five days a week.

Students spend the majority of their day staring at their screen, and as a result, many lack the free time to do relaxing things like hanging out with their friends.

From being up all night doing assignments, students don’t always have the energy or look forward to getting up the next day just to find out they have more work to complete.

The increased screen time and the lack of face-to-face interaction have affected many students’ physical and mental health. Due to students being in school for numerous hours, they may not have the time to Facetime or call their friends for fun. Students are also faced with a great deal of anxiety from trying to look presentable when entering these online meetings. Together, this can cause negative impacts on a student’s overall well-being.

A student-run newspaper class at Syracuse University called the Daily Orange, created a survey to see how online school has affected students’ mental health. The results showed that 22% of students said before online learning, they were receiving help for their mental health but now that they are not attending in person, they are not receiving any. The survey also recorded that 32% of students’ mental health has gotten worse over the course of online school. 

This survey suggests that if schools don’t get students the same resources they had before, they might as well solve the problem by not conducting online classes every day.

Another study points out the decline in attendance in online school compared to in person. 

According to a survey from Fishbowl, the majority of the teachers said that less than half of the students were attending an online school. The survey also stated that 34% of the teachers said that one out of every four students would attend remote learning. Many surveyed states like Michigan, North Carolina, Ohio, and California further claimed that one out of four students would show up for online school each day. New Jersey is one of the states with the highest number of students not attending an online school, with only about 66.7% of teachers saying half of their students actually show up for remote learning.

If there weren’t classes every day, there is a possibility that more students would want to show up since they know there are fewer classes each week.

While school systems are still learning how to get students to engage in these live team sessions, schools should not run for so many hours each day for five days in a row.