The Subjectivity of Online Learning
Subjectivity, for a general definition, refers to the experience of being a particular person or creature. If I were to imagine what it is like to be my pet cat, sleeping on my bed or scuttling across my keyboard during online meetings, then I am restricted to imagining my cat’s experience (see Thomas Nagel’s What is it Like to be a Bat 1974). Paradoxically, we can all imagine learning, working, and perhaps, playing, online this particular year. Needless to say, summer of 2020 is my first experience with online learning. Accordingly, the majority of students at my university (LUC), in a survey for classes in the fall, prefer a mix of online and in-person classes. It so happens that, like many college students, my experience was entirely online. Such will be the case for the spring. There are a few things that I need to remind myself about online learning, and therefore, will write to remember them as I contemplate the supposed absurdity of this year.
I am in my room with my laptop. I have changed my marble case for a new one with cacti, and am toggling between wifi signals to log into my various classes. Unequivocally, the grid of faces and initials is a sight to behold. There is a person, who is the professor, lecturing and facilitating discussions on a two-dimensional rectangle in cyberspace. I either have my book in front of me, or I am squinting at the screen to follow the class. Admittedly, I might also be checking my email without provocation or embarrassment. Rarely, if ever, is there anything urgent. Strangely, this lack of urgency seeps into my everyday routine, where I am straddling the boundary between productivity, and an endless, dull, monotony. Unfortunately for myself, that boundary has collapsed now, as if it had ever existed before.
I continually remind myself that the content is interesting, and I turn in assignment after assignment, watching as the course site updates with the semester. Online learning is now my method of obtaining a university education. In a survey conducted by Top Hat, 85 percent of students “miss the social experience with other students.” Even if I am not remotely social, I still miss people. I miss walking in boots along the cold lakefront, and feeling the whip of the wind on my back as I traipse through the snow. The clubs and other organizations are now remote, so I also miss being able to attend a function or event while actually attending it beyond the spatial locality of my bedroom.
On the other hand, in the United States, 74.55 percent of the population had access to the internet in 2015, which rose to 76.18 in 2017. Given that internet access is unequally distributed worldwide, there are places, such as Canada, with 88.4 percent of the population with internet access in 2015 and 91.19 percent in 2017. There are also other countries where access is much more limited, which can be viewed on the Our World in Data charts. The point is that the internet and social media present new forms of communication, as well as alternate forms of access to resources. Hence, unequal internet access impacts marginalized communities and possesses unique challenges to individuals and their communities in terms of adapting to a new environment. It also means that while I might miss aspects of what I consider my freshman and sophomore years, there are also larger social distributions that I am a part of within my own experience.
From the Top Hat survey, 58 percent of students reported that they felt anxious in the Yale study. I am anxious, too, and have been for a long time. I take the tablets, track my mood, and also ensure that I do not lose my head. The undue pressure to perform, perform, perform absorbs my daily routine into a litany of studying, writing, and forms of social engagement that I have eked out of the schedule. I believe, in all honesty, that if my schedule were to take a physical form, that it would look like one of those demonic creatures with leathery wings, a pitchfork, and in my case, crumpled up sheets of rejected ideas. Thus far, my planner is fairly docile, with sweet green turtles lackadaisically drifting in the sea. I am slightly sorrowful that I need a new one. The next planner should have an image of that demonic entity to guard the ever-changing confines of my tasks and routine.
There are students falling through the cracks of the social system, and online learning can exacerbate the challenges of students who are struggling in the new environment. In the meantime, the grids of faces and initials makes it difficult to discern the condition of my classmates. If they are asked, then the general response is tiredness, anxiousness, and a sense of collective exhaustion. If there is an image, or artifact, to articulate the environment that we are in for online everything, then the following summary and analysis one episode from one of of my favorite television shows will suffice. I enjoy television and comedy. Nevertheless, there are moments where I believe that the bizarre nature of fiction captures the human condition. In this case, it encompasses the current role of the internet in accordance with my online education.
The IT Crowd is a fantastic show; as such, in season three episode four of the IT Crowd, Jen Barber (played by Katherine Parksinson) is put up to a prank by her co-workers, the intellectually awkward Maurice Moss (played by Richard Ayoade) and the simply awkward Roy Trennenman (played by Chris O’Dowd). Winning the coveted ‘Employee of the Month,’ manager of the IT department Jen is convinced that a small black box in Big Ben is, in fact, the internet. Roy and Moss expect her to humiliate herself in presenting this black box as the internet, but much to their surprise, the corporate audience believes her presentation and panic when it seems that the black box, the internet, is broken in a non-related scuffle. The internet as a black box in Big Ben presents a prank in this fictional universe. Interestingly, the torrid of online activity and learning could be equivocated to a deep truth about the internet, in which we are inclined to believe anything with enough encouragement and people who also subscribe to that belief or ‘fact.’ There is false information, which is not new. The IT Crowd episode also draws attention to the idea that I interact with the internet everyday with very little knowledge as to how it works. This point could be easily remedied with some reading, despite my propensity to be enveloped in my own bubble.
The bubble is defined as the filter and lens of content on social media, society, as well as course content in classes. For me, the bubble is what I consciously and unconsciously surround myself with to buffer against disturbing or challenging aspects of the world. Consequently, subjectivity might be the experience of being me, but there is more to the online experience than myself. Every time I am on the internet, I am incredibly close to interacting with the online community, and the phantoms behind each article, post, configuration of web pages, etc. With regard to the online spring semester, I can only hope that there is enough weirdness in the world to pique my interest for the coming year. From that perspective, I have nothing to worry about. That is, if I can still maintain enough excitement and monotony to continue with the oscillations in my daily life. Thus, the subjectivity of my online learning is in accordance with interconnections with my community, as well as the internal and external disturbences of the living life as a college student.
