This is very important for students to go back to school for their mental health, their ability to learn, and for their social skills. Being at home all day long will have no positive benefits for their well beings as children, teens, and young adults.

  First, Over 38% of people say their mental health has declined due to COVID-19 stated by mentalhealthcommission.ca. When children and teens go online no one is happy about it and everyone feels the same way about online learning; "sadness, irritability, feeling negative and worthless" those are just some of the feelings experienced during online learning and those are signs of depression in teens, stated Mayo Clinic staff. To add to that, 1 in 5 are reporting moderate-to-severe anxiety during this online learning started by mentalhealthcommission.ca. Being a teenager is already hard enough without not being able to see your friends, playing your sports and just being a kid. The mental health aspect and how putting children and teens into this position is horrible and is incredibly impactful on their mental health and will be more destructive than beneficial.

  Second, children's ability to learn is being impacted immensely with children starting to skip more and more classes and not being as interested in what they are learning. With online learning "it is harder for students to grasp concepts being taught" stated by Katherine Northenor and will have a negative impact for the future especially if they didn't understand it and go into next year's class where the things they are learning only gets harder and can really set students back and even farther back if they are already behind. I, as an honor roll student, find it very difficult to learn online. It does make me struggle and so many other fellow classmates of mine.
 

Yes, you might think it's better because you are learning how to use technology to its fullest and it is the 21st century but staring at a computer screen for 6 hours a day. Is it really good for us students? Does just staring at the computer screen really allow students to take in what they are learning?

Finally, "online learning can cause social isolation, and can cause students to not develop needed communication skills' ' stated by Katherine Northenor. When children and teens go online they lose the ability to communicate with each other because all they do all day is sit in front of the computer and listen. Just listening and if they do have the opportunity to talk its for 5 mins or less and it's not like a time to talk to your peers like its a recess it's like a time to share what they learned in the lesson and not share what they would like to talk about and can't really express their feeling to their peers. 

  Overall, online learning affects students' mental health, ability to learn, and affects their social skills immensely and has no positive effects for the time being or the future.