More and more companies are allowing employees to work at home allowing students to study at home Do you think this is a positive or negative development

In today's world, with the widespread use of the Internet, it can be seen that many corporations and schools allow their employees and students to work and study from home on various online platforms. From my perspective, this phenomenon presents both benefits and drawbacks.

On the one hand, approving workers and scholars to work and study from home can bring more potential merits that should be taken into consideration. First of all, employees and students may save on money and hidden costs like fuel or car purchases associated with time spent going to and from offices and schools, which gives them the flexibility and convenience to arrange their schedules. In other words, they can avoid being stuck in traffic congestion and have more time to spend with their family at home, exercising, getting additional sleep, and preparing healthier meals. Furthermore, home-working and studying-working grant a quieter environment that can facilitate more focused work and study. Therefore, individuals can be more productive and may perform better on their assignments. Additionally, in the intricate context of the COVID-19 pandemic, many conglomerates, schools, and universities are closed due to government restrictions. Consequently, working and studying from home has become the only option for people to maintain their workload as well as their knowledge, and this method can prevent them from getting infected by the coronaviruses, which have killed the lives of many citizens.

On the other hand, I consider that working and learning from home has certain detriments for various reasons below. First and foremost, there is a lack of communication between students and employees. To illustrate, spending long hours collaborating with only a computer screen and no face-to-face interaction can be a significant obstacle for each team member. Although there are a plethora of platforms like Zoom, Teams, or Google Meets where workers can connect through video calls, these applications sometimes get into trouble with poor network conditions and thus affect employees in group discussions and conferences dramatically, along with the quality of work. On an academic level, e-learning methods are proven to be highly effective at improving the academic knowledge of students. However, developing the communication skills of the students is an area often neglected during online lessons. Because of the lack of face-to-face communication between peers, students, and teachers in an online setting, students might find that they are unable to work effectively. As a result, individuals who inevitably spend much time online can start experiencing signs of social isolation and, hence, cause several mental health syndromes like depression, anxiety, and so on. Another harmful drawback is that not all the people in the world can access the Internet and have different private devices such as computers or tablets for studying or working online. For instance, in Vietnam, there is still a wide gap in computer literacy in the population, at approximately 25%. Until such gaps in society still exist, online education and work will not be able to reach all citizens.

In summary, despite the numerous demerits mentioned above, I conclude that working and studying from home is more beneficial since it gives people more inspiration and freedom. I predict that in the future, seriously affected by the pandemic, companies, and schools may permit their workers and scholars to work and learn from a distance.