Vol. 10, Issue 4 (2021)

Author(s):
Surabhi Singh, Aayushi Saini and TR Ahlawat

Abstract:
Covid 19 pandemic led to a series of lockdowns in India since March, 2020 in India. Schools and colleges were shut down and e-teaching is the only way of education. Despite of several benefits of e-learning at educational front, increased screen time and use of ICT tools may affect health of students adversely. To explore any of such possibility, a survey has been conducted on students of higher education of five universities of India. The objective of research is to study the effect of online teaching on students’ health. Five universities were selected for collecting data and a questionnaire was sent to the students. Total 275 students had responded and filled the questionnaire. The data were collected in the month of May and June. It was found that almost 67 per cent students had no experience of online classes before pandemic condition. Forty two per cent students reported that they started feeling eye strain between 1-2 hours of online teaching. Neck pain and back pain were felt by 52 per cent and 44 per cent students respectively. Students also reported various visual problems like headache, watery eyes, visual tiredness etc. due to online teaching. Hence, it can be concluded that students would have adverse impact on their visual health and they can have musculoskeletal disorders due to increased screen time and long static posture. Ergonomic interventions are needed to improve health condition during online teaching.