So, what does this mean?
The research indicates that a major cause of external distraction in Zoom classes comes from a lack of stimulation.
In in-person classes, there’s more movement from class to class and built-in breaks to alleviate the monotony. However, in Zoom classes, there’s just a screen. The stimulation is incredibly low which leads to students turning to their phone or their laptop or other people for distractions.
Ironically, it also seems that internal distractions in Zoom classes come from overstimulation.
Students get bewildered by their own images and face increased anxiety. They’re unable to read social cues and other behaviors, so the screen becomes massively overwhelming. This, in turn, prevents them from concentrating on the material at hand.
How can students be both under-stimulated and overstimulated at the same time?
Essentially, Zoom learning blocks out other avenues that may have created more stimulation, like movement, and restricts the focus to the visual and auditory aspects of the screen. The students are confined to a single environment. Because their focus is solely on the screen, their visual and auditory senses are amplified which creates discomfort and confusion leading them to distraction.
That distraction, as we’ve seen, has been one of the major causes for negative student performance and has dictated the Zoom education experience.
Zoom has already proposed a means by which to alleviate the distraction in online education. Their focus mode allows the teachers to see students but prevents students from seeing each other. This could stop students from distracting each other and focus student attention on the material and the teacher.
While it could reduce external distractions in online education, there are a number of other distractions, such as internal and mental ones, that would not be addressed. Hopefully, as we continue to learn more about the connections between education and attention in regards to Zoom and other online education platforms, more innovations and solutions will be found so that everyone can learn.