Studying online requires great dedication, planning and the ability to block out external influences. Unfortunately, many students misunderstand the whole principle of online studies where students are expected to develop their independence and capitalize on their ability to study in an environment that they think is most conducive to their learning. As a result, many students fall by the wayside because of them not sticking to these principles.

Several studies have been conducted by various online education and student bodies to ascertain the reasons behind the failure of some students during their online studies. The studies all point to one common factor of distraction: the wasting of time while studying online. Now, these modes of time wasting vary from one student to another and include:

Excessive time in chat rooms:

While doing an online course, students will spend a lot of time on the internet. Some networking programs such as Windows LIVE Messenger, SKYPE or Yahoo Messenger only require your computer to be logged unto the internet for them to be automatically signed in. Even if you do not sign to a page such as Facebook, your friends can still know you are online. Now many online students do not like to be impolite to their friends and, when contacted, spend hours chatting online instead of studying.

Playing video games:

The internet is buzzing with both free and for-profit video game sites that allow users to either play alone or compete remotely with each other. Some online students easily get caught up in video gaming and before they know it, 3 hours have elapsed that could have been better spent studying.

News addiction:

This affects many adult online students who believe they must catch up on all the latest news from all over the world before they can settle down to study. Therefore, in the first hour and a half, they must surf through the web pages of BBC, CNN, NBC, etc. If this is done two or three times per day, they have already lost almost five hours per day that could have been spent studying.

Computer tweaking:

Now, we all want our computers to perform at their best, but it still does not justify spending hours on the internet searching torrent websites for the latest application that increases your speed or gives you access to some program crack. Some online students also search these sites for books that they think they need but really do not and end up losing a lot of precious time that could have been spent studying.

Talking on the phone:

Some online students have not been able to separate their study time from their leisure time. As a result, they broadcast to their friends “hit me up on the phone, I am home all day studying.” Getting this invitation, their friends will call and they spend hours chatting away about everything but schoolwork. Before they know it, the day has elapsed and that is another valuable day lost from their studies.