Inner Thought

Online Education Disadvantages

Too much exposure to screens of mobiles and laptops leads a feeling of isolation and anxiety at the present time, are one of the major online education disadvantages. It can point to distress and an increase in abnormal or obsessive tendency such as nail biting, thumb sucking and hair pulling. Excessive use of gadgets even resulted as mental health issues, stress feeling, anxious, excited or thrill sensations, headaches, muscle fatigue, eye strain on eyes and ears, obesity or overweight, laziness and disordered sleep patterns, mentally disturbed, pain on backs, shoulders and neck muscles etc. Online education also affected the physical activity levels of students like bad posture, later bedtimes, longer sleep rise discontinuation and later waking times which has been associated with motionless and lazy lifestyle.

Online Education Disadvantages

 

Following are the Main Online education disadvantages :

1)Health-Related Concerns

• Online education requires the use of a computer and other such devices as a result eyestrain, develop bad posture, and other physical health problems impact the students.
• Student spend many hours staring at a screen is one of the biggest concerns and disadvantages of online education.

2)Disturbance of sleeping habits

• One of the major unpleasant outcome of the passage to online education is its impact on student sleeping habits. 
• online education has unavoidably increased the amount of time students spend on digital devices everyday which effects their physical and mental health associated with not sticking to a regular sleep cycle include difficulties falling asleep, staying asleep, waking up and daytime fatigue.

3)Technology Issues / Internet Connection Problems

• In smaller cities and towns, a consistent connection with decent speed is a problem. Without a consistent internet connection for students or teachers, online education is impossible, even slow connections are worse for online learning.
• Any malfunctioning in software or hardware resulted as interrupt in the online education.
• Many times in the past, students were required to download and/or install cumbersome apps or technology that would deliver inconsistent performances.
• Lack of access, whether it be for economic or logistic reasons, not being able to see or hear an instructor’s lesson distract the student from online education. This is a significant issue in rural and lower socioeconomic zone.
• Crash the server which hosts the program cut all participants off from the online class.
• a participant may access the class through a networked computer which could go down, individual PCs can have numerous problems which could limit students’ access.
• The Internet connection could fail, or the institution hosting the connection could become slowed up the online education.

4)Inability To Focus On Screens

• Focusing on the screen for long periods of time is the difficult task and  a greater chance for students to be easily distracted by social media or other web sites. Thus teachers have to play crucial role to keep their online classes engaging and interactive so that students concentrate on the class.

5)Online Education has Lack of Structure

• Self-disciplined students can profit gained from the mobility and convenience, flexibility of online education, but it is a drawback for unsystematic, intractable, undisciplined or unmotivated children as they fall behind on assignments, fail to study adequately by test deadlines and ultimately suffer as no one present behind them to remind  about assignments and  exert  continuously, vigorously, or obtrusively to gain an end pushing for work harder.

6)Limited Social Interaction in Online Education

• Social isolation coupled with a lack of communication often leads to several mental health issues such as deepen stress, anxiety, and negative thoughts.
• Due to lack of social interactions with companion before and after classes and absence of  face-to-face experiences , sense of community and belongingness not able to develop with students .

7)Online Education Need Teacher Training

• Teachers  should have a basic understanding of digital forms of learning. In some cases they don’t even have the required possessions, means and tools to executing online classes.

8)Online Education Requires A Good Grasp of Tech Skills

• Learning from a website, blog or whichever online platform requires you to understand online technology like how to navigate the screen, how to maneuver around a video, task or text.  Online education is very difficult in the absence of such skill.

9)Online Education offer Sense of Isolation

• There are minimal physical interactions between students and teachers often results in a sense of isolation for the students.
• Learners may feel isolated as it is on one’s own or by oneself  for the most part, which may give the learner the feeling that they are acting completely alone.
• Spending a major amount of time of a day in front of the screen resulted as one’s psychological health.

10)Online Education Unsuitable for Hands-on Fields

• Some subjects should not be taught online because they require practical sessions , Examples public speaking, surgery, dental hygiene, medicine and sports where physical movement and practice contribute to the achievement of the learning objectives. 
• Practical skills are somewhat harder to pick up from online resources. Pottery and car engineering are examples of skills that require hands-on experience.
• Online education never replacement an postmortem or pathological examination of the dead for medical students or real-life industrial training for a budding engineer. 
• For example, if one wants to learn philosophy, which requires the ability to deeply evaluate given knowledge and synthesise and arrive at new postulates, it will be very difficult to acquire that level of deep learning virtually.

11)Possibility of Diversion

• In online education the chances of getting diverted and losing  target date are high because no faculty around for face-to-face interaction and no classmates to help with constant reminders about pending assignments.
• In Online education concentration of children easily draw away due to many important factor like people moving around, noise from surrounding, friend chat etc.

12)Online Education has Hidden Expenses

• Installing a computer , printer, a web camera , maintenance of equipment’s , electricity costs , getting a reliable Internet connection etc are some fixed cost in online education.

13)Quality of faculty compromised

• Online education is frequently annoy by shortage of enough good quality faculty members,
• Even if the educator knowledge is up-to-date, teaching in an online environment or the technology they use may be the another reason for downside of online education.

14)Online Education Need Time management

• Time management is very important in online courses, if you are not managing the time efficiently then you are  beneath the underside or base of course and overburden yourself.
• online education involve setting your own goals, tracking progress and meeting deadlines.

15)Online Education Required Too Much Attention 

• Getting learners’ attention and holding onto it is a problem of online education.
• There is no face-to-face interaction with the learners, so not possible to see or hear educator or instructor  in real-time, and hence difficult to know their reaction on lectures providing to them. Thus keeping attention of students is very necessary in online education.

16)Online Education give Excessive freedom

• Students can misuse their independence as  excess freedom or no restriction, no institutional guideline, no class commander and  lack of proper guidance is harmful for students and difficult  to engage  and complete the lessons ,assignments and deadlines by themselves.

17)Online Education Require Computer Literacy

• Both students and instructor must possess a minimum level of computer knowledge in order to function successfully in an online environment like able to use a search engines ,internet access ,email etc. If they do not possess such technology knowledge, they will not succeed in an online program.

18)Online Education Requires strong Self-Motivation and Time Management Skills

• Online courses need greater amount of motivation ,time management skills and self-discipline because numerous  key factor  missing from online education like constantly push students towards their learning goals. Face-to-face communication with professors, peer-to-peer activities, and strict schedules etc.

19)Time-Consuming Method

• Online education need  to spend more time in studying and completing assignments as it is text-based and to communicate with your instructor and other students,  only medium is typing messages and it is known fact that typing is slower than speaking and that’s the major flaw of remote learning, that it is time-consuming. Similarly reading your lecture materials can take more time than listening to an instructor deliver them and hence greater effort to accomplish it.

20)Dependent Learners 

• Online education required well organized, self-motivated and a high degree of time management skills and because of this it is not suitable for younger student and dependent learners.

21)Lacks the Warmth of Face to Face Interaction

• Body language and eye to eye contact,  which are the necessary part of teaching is difficult to maintain in an online education.
• Studying alone with only the computer as companion can be distressing for many students.

22)Lack of Communicational Skill Development in Online Students

• Communication skill , which play a vital role in the development of the student is not possible in online education because of  absence of  face-to-face communication between peers, students and teachers in an online education consequently  they excel in theoretical knowledge but could not able to pass their knowledge to others.

23)Stressful for Those with Weak Character

• Online education required personal time-management skills as there is no one behind you to get to class on time, submission of assignment, appearing the exam and meet the deadlines.
• Studying at home, with family and other distractions  create obstacle  to concentrate .

24)More postponing

• Delay in work or postponing the work is very common in the online education. As there is no one to give you the extra push to finish your homework.
• Delaying or postponing something is commonly seen in online education.

25)Questionable Credibility of Degrees

• Online education are base of rising  lots of illegal and non-accredited  /not approved degrees , which are being offered as online courses. 

26)Online Education has Lack of Flexibility 

• The problem with many video conferencing tools is that they are strictly video conferencing tools. They provide the ability to see and hear and the chance to be seen and heard but not much else. 

 

Online Education Disadvantages Research Report 

• A study revealed in July 2011 by the Columbia University Community College Research Center indicated that Washington community college students were more likely to drop online classes than traditional ones. Course completion for traditional courses was 90 percent, and for online classes, it was 82 percent.
• In a recent survey of 733 students studying in government schools in Bihar, only 28% of the girls had smartphones in their homes, in contrast to 36% of the boys.
• Time spent on screens not just for studies but for other activities as well is increasing, says a city-based psychiatrist.
• According to Dr Adarsh Annapareddy, orthopaedic and joint replacement surgeon, Sunshine Hospitals  “Without the right posture and the right kind of study desk, at a certain point, they are bound to complain about extreme pain on their backs, shoulders, and neck muscles because of straining for long periods of time”.
• Baljinder Singh of Sector 21, Chandigarh, suspects his children have increased mood swings now. “They are already cooped up at home and are getting cranky and restless. After their online classes I find they are unable to focus on their work and suffer from headaches,” he says.
• Opticians in the city too say more cases of children with complaints of eye strain are coming to them. “At least three or four people come in every day to get their children’s eyes tested because of increased screen time,” says Samrat Arora, the general secretary of the Chandigarh Optical Association, who runs an eye care centre in Sector 22.
• A parent of an 8‑year-old attending a private school in Gurgaon says, ​“There shouldn’t be online classes for such young kids. Their concentration span is small and they do not pay attention after a while.” The 8‑year-old added, ​“I hate them (online classes)!”
• ​“In a Class of 40 students, after two months of online classes, around 20 students regularly attend class with whatever device and connection they have. Around 5 – 8 students are completely absent till date and rest are fluctuating”, says a school teacher in Ratnagiri in Maharashtra. A teacher in a government-aided school from the small town of Chamba in Himachal Pradesh says, ​“It is a frustrating experience to engage students of lower classes in online mode. There are network issues on both teachers’ and students’ ends”.
• According to one BBC article ” having exclusively online interactions can have a real impact on the mental health of both students and professors. Zoom fatigue is real – video chats make it harder for our brains to process “non-verbal cues like facial expressions, the tone and pitch of the voice, and body language,” 

 

Conclusion

People who don’t have enough to eat, how can they afford a laptop and Internet access? Only a small part of the Indian population has access to online education right now. Interrupted power supply, weak or non-existent internet connectivity, and unaffordability to buy necessary devices are major disadvantages of online education. India is a multi-linguistic country, and a vast majority of the population comes from rural areas. The content offered by most of the online courses is in English. Hence, those students who are not able to speak English struggle with the availability of language content is also online education disadvantages.

Most parents still do not understand what online classroom really means; how can they tell their children how to use it? Even if there is hand-holding from teachers or administrators, would it reach the poorest of the poor?  Depending entirely on online education may interrupt or slow down the whole development of children, and many may underperform or to fail to do as expected later in their professional and personal lives.

Online education has pros and cons. Students have to analyze both side of the coin or the factors which provide help to making an informed decision about the direction of their career path. Students have to decide, how they are going to accomplish their goals. For knowing in depth of benefits of online education please refer my article

Benefits of online education

Reference article

Online Classes effects health badly

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