Imagine sitting in class trying to listen to the teacher’s lecture or get work done when all of a sudden a loud jumble of voices starts to rise and corrupt the room.
There’s a chance people will get annoyed or distracted and start to slack off themselves.
This is usually the case for a lot of students. While it is not a crime to laugh and have fun while talking to friends, there is a time and place for it. In a silent classroom where students are trying to learn is not the time to flood it with high voices and random outbursts of a conversation.
“I get so annoyed with people who just yell and scream in class, it takes away my focus and puts me in a horrible mood for the rest of the day,” Jess Moser said.
If someone wants to slack off by talking loudly and not doing their work, that is on them, but it is when it becomes a distraction to everyone else that it can become more of an annoyance than a conversation.
I have had my fair share of people who talk as loud as they possibly can in my classes and it is distracting. I have had times where I absolutely can not work because they are so distracting.
Yelling out random things or quoting random trends at inappropriate times and just becoming a disturbance to the class. An annoyance is felt throughout the room and the focus is more on them than anything else.
Another example of this is people sleeping in class. While it does not disturb me directly, it can when the teacher starts to get on them for it. I have had classes where it is just a fight every day because one student will not stay awake and then will argue about it when called out.
While this is a huge distraction to the class it also takes away from the teacher’s plans and their lessons, leaving the class behind. Teachers plan out all of their lessons for the week and it can be hard when no one is listening, which makes the class fall behind and then everyone is slacking.
While I have instances like this I have also been the cause of a class distraction. Getting called out for this is not only embarrassing but is also needed. I genuinely did not know I was causing a distraction and talking so loud with a friend but when we got called out, as embarrassing as it was, it helped us to talk quieter and actually get work done.
“I get easily distracted so when people are being loud and talking around me it makes it hard for me to focus and get work done in class or listen to the teacher,” Cameron Hansen said.
Another part of this that is unfair is during group projects. Being paired up with someone who does not do anything or just talks to their friend rather than you the whole time can feel like the end of the world. Them being able to get a free grade off of all your hard work and time put into the actual work can be enraging.
But when you try to hold them accountable for their part your grade ends up failing also because most of the time they do not finish it and if they do it is not done well.
It is also frustrating when they will not talk with you or even focus on the work you have to do, especially when it is half of your grade.
“I usually just work by myself if I can because most people slack off in group work,” Detroit Rodgers said.
The concept of slackers affecting us all is not that people are easily distracted or just do not have very good attention spans, but the fact that it is downright annoying and hard for everyone to learn under such conditions.
It is different especially when it is a one-time occurrence, but most of the time it is not. For if someone can not focus one day and decides to just push their work to the side and just talk to their friend all period is different than a group who is constantly not doing their work and just talking loud enough for the whole school to practically hear and causing a huge distraction.
People who do not slack off often can still be a distraction, but learning when you are being a big distraction and when you are just silently talking can make a huge difference.
“There is a kid that sleeps in my second period and then just argues with the teacher and yells at everyone which makes it hard to focus because he sits like two seats down from me,” Hansen said.
Classmates like these can also leave others in a horrible mood. There is nothing worse than being in a good mood than going to a class where people are just messing around and being annoying the whole period and putting you in an agitated mood for the rest of the hour.
I used to leave my fourth-period class so drained and agitated my junior year because of a group that I was close with who would just mess around all period and be as loud as they could possibly be. They were constantly getting the class in trouble and it felt embarrassing to sit with them most of the time because everyone was so deeply annoyed with them.
When I eventually moved away from them it was even worse because although they sat all the way across the room I still could not focus at all, which caused my straight As to drop to Bs and a Cs in the class because I had been so behind and unable to focus.
While I had been at the center of this group for a while, I started to slowly realize just how annoying it had become and how distracting we were being. Then when I stopped I finally saw just how bad it was.
“It is annoying when I can’t get anything done in classes because people won’t quite talk or run around,” Rodgers said.
Next time you decide to slack off and sleep, or yell with friends, or even just mess around and do stupid actions or sounds think about how it affects more than just you, and you may be the reason for someone else’s attitude or distraction.
