Awkward Zoom Classes May Have Silver Lining

Although our familiarity with technology has progressed over the course of the COVID-19 pandemic, I often feel that we ourselves have regressed. My school recently had to implement a new rule: Be dressed and out of bed before class. Something that had been an obvious social expectation before must now be explicitly stated. 

I am sure nearly every high school teacher and student in virtual classes is familiar with the lack of participation over Zoom. The longer the awkward silence lasts, the harder it feels to speak, until the chances of someone talking are close to none. No one likes it, yet no one feels enough responsibility to take one for the team, unmute themselves, and say just one thing.

One of my teachers shared an interesting hypothesis for why this might be: Our self-consciousness is heightened by seeing ourselves on our screens as we think, listen, and breathe. For already highly self-conscious teenagers, this may make us feel even more worried about how others are perceiving us, thus causing us to avoid speaking altogether. In person, not confronted by an image of ourselves, our attention is free to be placed on the class material and the people around us. It is easier to feel unafraid and to speak freely.

I suspect our self-consciousness is even further heightened when we just woke up five minutes before class, have not brushed our hair, and are still wearing pajama pants.

Silence on Zoom was definitely a problem when virtual school began last spring, and I can see my teachers trying to overcome it this fall. One method is to give us a prompt for discussion, then put us in small breakout rooms with just two or three people. This almost forces us to talk. It also has the potential to be quite uncomfortable, especially if you don’t know or particularly like the people you are with. However, silence is even more uncomfortable, and, in such a small group, the pressure on each individual to speak is intensified. In my small breakout groups, everyone talks, and class is much more fun and engaging. 

Self-consciousness may seem like a purely negative side effect of virtual learning, but recently I have come to recognize its benefits too. Some people have always felt self-conscious in school, often because of their ability, race, gender, sexual orientation, or mental health status. Now, a whole generation of students is being made self-conscious by having to scrutinize themselves and their actions in virtual class. 

Perhaps our reluctance to speak might be an intermediate step towards social progress. Perhaps, by all sharing the burden of self-consciousness, we can reduce its effects on those who feel it all the time. 

Right now we’re being quiet because we’re worrying about how others perceive us. But maybe we can learn to use that pause in a constructive way: to think before we speak and act. Instead of worrying about how others perceive us, maybe we can worry about what we might say that makes others feel bad — and not say it.

If my generation learns to transform our self-consciousness into self-awareness, I hope it’s a lesson we can carry out of the Zoom environment and into the real world — when we finally get back there. 

Sophia David is a senior at Friends’ Central School. She lives in Swarthmore.