Although the Covid-19 pandemic was approximately five years in the past, the effects of the catastrophe remain today. For many students, what was supposed to be a couple of weeks off from school quickly snowballed into a five-month-long summer break. When students went online for the rest of the year, they had no foundation for hours on end during an important developmental time of their lives, and by high school, Covid was something of the past. When students started learning remotely, they did the only thing they could do: they grabbed the remote or their cellphones. Senior Elise Scott believes screens made students all the more isolated in an already lonely time. Students need interaction to flourish and gain important lifelong skills, and Covid deprived many of those opportunities.
“As the years go on, you gain more confidence as a human. [Covid-19] was just a really weird stage of my life,” said Scott. “Technology was definitely a barrier. It was our only way of connection, so there was some relation [to screens bringing everyone together], but it made everything seem more…isolated.”
Due to the pandemic, students find that the use of technology in classrooms has increased substantially. Along with the boom of technology, since Covid, there have been many changes to the scholastic setting. Senior Jude Huebner has noticed many changes in school settings that are likely consequences of the pandemic.
“Lockers are not really a thing anymore. We did off with that since online [schooling] and now a lot of people wash their hands more often now; that’s stuck around,” said Huebner. “[School] shifted to a lot more things being online and on the computer. I probably use the computer more now than I would if COVID never happened.”
Some students find it arduous to complete tasks, because everyone was given a break during quarantine. Phones were a convenient distraction for students during Covid, but over time, a reliance started to form, and students found it difficult to go without technology. Sophomore Hayley Silver believes Covid-19 led to a drop in student motivation.
“[The pandemic] definitely made us do less of our work. We don’t do as much as we should be doing,” said Silver.
The abrupt shift to online learning was new for everyone, and with multiple struggles, such as poor internet connections, no devices, and no incentive to finish their work, students lost almost all reason to complete it. Plus, there was always something more interesting to do, right? Huebner adds to students’ lack of enthusiasm for completing academic assignments during this time.
“Senioritis was already setting in by sixth grade. I had no motivation or reason to do anything, so I didn’t really do anything,” said Huebner.
Covid was the ideal environment for the rapid expansion of technology, with advancements such as artificial intelligence. Covid was a vulnerable time for students, and it became easy to talk to people through a screen. It became more acceptable to converse with strangers and AI bots because of the loneliness many students experienced. Students became worried about being perceived in any negative light, so when students returned to school, they stopped asking as many questions out of fear of looking ‘stupid’ or ‘dumb’. Huebner believes AI is convenient for students to use because it cuts student working time in half, but in retrospect, hinders student learning.
“If there’s no one watching you, what’s stopping you from using it? It can look easier to talk to a fake AI than actually asking a real person who could judge you,” Huebner said.“If you have to use AI to answer everything, then are you really getting any smarter?”
Due to Covid’s increase in reliance on technology worldwide, students have seen the effects of this dependency. The pandemic has changed many ways in which people go about their daily lives; for instance, when students get into college, they now receive their acceptance letter through email instead of a big official invitation in the mail. The isolation students felt during this time is irreparable, and it will take an eternity to recover from. Gen Z has become more self-sufficient for both better and worse; virtual dependence has caused them to lose the ability to socialize and fear condemnation from their peers. Scott recognizes the long term affects of AI dependence and how reliance on technology has made students factor out emotions when consulting with others.
“Once [students] get a job and they have to do paperwork, it’s gonna hit them that you can’t just plug everything into an AI, and it gives you the correct answer because of the human interactions you have to make in life. You have to take other people’s emotions into account when doing work relations, so it’s going to hinder our economy once we all grow up,” said Scott.
During Covid, technology was the only apparatus that students believed was available to them. It was quick, easy, and efficient to use. Social media was one of the biggest factors that kept students connected when they felt alone. Social distancing required everyone to physically stay away from each other, so it’s only natural that, over time, people became more comfortable in solitude. In order to cope with this isolation, students turned to gaming, social media, and TV shows, which in turn sped up students’ turning to artificial intelligence.
“Nobody expected it, because we were going on break, and then all of a sudden we just didn’t come back,” said Silver.
