Caught in the Study Web? It's a common predicament in the digital age. Let's delve into the labyrinth of online learning, exploring its complexities, challenges, and potential solutions to help you navigate this intricate web with ease and efficiency.
Exploring Gen Z’s Ambitious and Anxiety-Fuelled Pursuit of Straight A’s Across YouTube, TikTok, Discord, and Twitter
Study Web is a vast, interconnected network of study-focused content and gathering spaces for students that spans platforms, disciplines, age groups, and countries
- Students seeking motivation, inspiration, focus, and support watch livestreams of a real person at their desk, studying; videos in the Study With Me genre are simultaneously streamed by thousands of students
- They join Discord communities, where they search for “study buddies,” share studying goals, and compete-by studying-for virtual rewards
- On Twitter, they swap study tips and seek out study “moots,” or mutuals, under the hashtag #StudyTwit
- Much of Study Web parallels more adult and professional spaces that have emerged in the last decade-revered influencers, a bend towards materialism, and inspiration over analysis.
Study Web’s Sad Undercurrent
Deflated students air their anxieties under YouTube videos, revealing how much they tie good grades and academic achievement to their self-worth
- There are no “adults” in these rooms, making Study Web both a safe space for young people to speak honestly about their fears and frustrations and a vacuum for them to speak into an analytical vacuum
- Adults created the systems that make Study Web feel so necessary to students in the first place
- Unable to find a place or person to turn to with their academic and career anxieties, they find internet strangers-strange kin-to speak to or simply share the same space with, online
- Study Web is the space students have constructed for themselves in response to the irl system that just isn’t working
YouTube
Tutoring videos are one-off watches where students land to grasp a concept and rarely return.
- The fresher crop of content on YouTube is filled with students returning again and again, seeking comfort and counsel from their favorite creators, regardless of what they’re studying or where they go to school
TikTok
On TikTok, YouTube’s motivational study content is shortened, condensed, and flipped from horizontal to vertical
- TikTok creators-ambitious students, recent graduates, and productive professionals-trade tips on finding focus
- StudyTok can be further subdivided by discipline into tags like #futuredoctor or #LawTok, where creators produce sector-specific content for students
- While some videos seek to commiserate, most of the content is motivational
- Recommendations are powerful buying engines
- Unlike YouTube, where you can add affiliate links with ease, monetizing suggestions on TikTok is more challenging
Study Creators
On YouTube, study creators with thousands to millions of subscribers focus less on subject matter and curriculum, instead sharing productivity tactics and study techniques.
- A key feature of these videos is aesthetics-from the right ruler to the perfect pen.
- Most creators are students themselves, grappling with many of the same pressures that they’re guiding their audience through.
Discord
Students congregate en masse in public servers to seek school advice and study with strangers
- There are over 983 servers tagged “Study” and 372 tagged “Homework”
- You’ll find servers like Study Together! with over 100K members
- A series of chat channels including “tips-advice-resources,” “motivation,” “looking-for-studybuddy,” “finished-work,” and “venting-channel”: students post personal ads looking to link with an accountability partner
- The more students study, the more they build up their streak and climb the board, with levels from Entry (30m-3hrs) to Study Master (220-350 hrs)
- Before entering a study room, students must state their session goals
Lo-fi + Live Streams
Students aiming to move past aspiration can use one of the oft-recommended techniques to actually study: the right music.
- Lofi Girl, a music YouTube channel with 8.4M subscribers, has an hour-long lo-fi mix that has 19.5 million views and a steady stream of students studying.
Study With Me
Often streamed live on YouTube or Twitch, creators sit at their desks and study, the idea being that fellow students watching will open up their textbooks and laptops to study alongside them
- Simulates the feeling of being in a coffee shop or studying at the library while also motivating students to focus for extended periods of time
- The allure is not only that you can study with your favorite creator but study like them, buying all their favorite study gadgets and gizmos
- Each creator brings their own unique taste to the genre
- James Scholz, an undergraduate at the University of Utah, has streamed 12 hours each day for a year
- Jimmy Kang, a medical student in Canada, streams study with me videos ranging from two to 12 hours on his YouTube channel
