DISADVANTAGES.

If you are alone, or lonely, or have recently broken up with a significant other, it can make you even
sadder. If you work in a flower shop for example, it can be very depressing making beautiful bouquets for
other boy's girlfriends when you have nobody to send flowers to you.

Negative impact of valentine's day on the environment

No matter how Valentine’s Day makes you feel, whether you get warm and fuzzy inside or experience
bouts of nausea, one thing is sure about the highly celebrated, somewhat dreaded holiday: it’s pretty
bad for the environment.

Just how bad V-day is for the environment requires us to take a good, hard look at the numbers: more
than 124 million people in the United States celebrate Valentine’s Day. Looking at paper gifts alone,
those millions of people buy 36 million heart-shaped boxes and 180 million greeting cards. All of that
adds up to an exceptionally large amount of waste and that does not even include the 198 million roses
purchased, or any of the wine, champagne, chocolates, and any other food and drinks consumed.

Sadly, Valentine’s Day’s recorded waste has serious, negative impacts on the environment and causes
more damage to planet Earth than you would think. All of the products purchased and consumed by
lovers, spouses, crushes, and whomever else, causes more carbon dioxide emissions than driving around
the entire world almost 4,000 times. Furthermore, all of the leftover paper and packaging from V-day
products weighs more than 4,170 hybrid cars.
Demand for online courses has increased in the early 21st century among college students. This is
especially true among adult workers who rely on flexible and convenient education to get a degree.
According to an August 2011 "Pew Research Center" report, 89 percent of public and 60 percent of
private colleges offer online courses. Despite the popularity, online classes do have downsides.Less
Direct Contact

Online classes don't offer the same immediate and regular access to instructors and classmates as
traditional face-to-face classes. The communication typically takes place through e-mail and in virtual
discussion forums. While this can aid in learning technology, it negatively impacts a student's ability to
interact with professors, ask questions and get immediate help. It also takes away from some of the
social and team-building that occurs informally in college classrooms.

Time Commitment

Students sometimes misconstrue that online classes require less time and effort than traditional courses.
The Montgomery College Online Student Success Center noted that active and self-disciplined learners
typically succeed. Students who struggle with traditional course rigor often have difficulty with the time
commitment required for online classwork. You normally have to schedule time each day to read
assignments and complete quizzes and tests that you would take in class in a traditional setting. Online
students also have to engage in class discussions and complete assignments, papers and projects. Team
activities may also add to the time commitment in some classes, as students must often communicate
with peers electronically and collaborate on work.

Less Accountability

Online students can't rely on as much instructor and peer feedback and accountability as traditional
courses sometimes offer. Instructors often update grades through virtual grade books and don't have as
much opportunity for regular informal feedback before and after classes. Additionally, students don't
have regular contact with class peers, who can offer assignment reminders and encouragement to
complete projects and assignments. This also applies to team activities since you don't have direct
interaction with teammates pushing you to complete your responsibilities.

Higher Dropout Rate

Tangibly, the most negative effect of online classes is a higher rate of class failure and dropouts. A study
revealed in July 2011 by the Columbia University Community College Research Center indicated that
Washington community college students were more likely to drop online classes than traditional ones.
Course completion for traditional courses was 90 percent, and for online classes, it was 82 percent.
Additionally, students in the study who took online courses were less likely to complete a degree or
transfer to another college. Students studied in 2004 who took at least one fall online class were 34
percent likely to drop out after one year compared to 26 percent who only took face-to-face classes.

Poor Communication
The inability to have a face-to-face chat with your tutor is just one negative aspect of online learning.
Difficulties seem to arise when students can't ask questions, receive verbal instructions or obtain
immediate feedback from their tutors. Research conducted by the International Review of Research in
Open and Distance Learning suggests that online courses can create student/professor
misunderstandings, which lead to misinterpretation of tasks. Doug Valentine of the University of
Oklahoma says distance-learning tutors sometimes become demoralized from feeling isolated and
professionally deprived, having a negative impact on their students' online learning experience.

Feeling Isolated

A research paper by Tim S. Roberts and Joanne M. McInnerney, faculty of Business and Informatics at
Central Queensland University in Australia, stresses the importance of interacting with fellow learners,
citing learners' feelings of isolation as a definite drawback of online courses. They cite a study of online
courses in 2001, which found that feelings of isolation were a huge stress factor and often prompted
students to drop out. Jill M. Galusha of the University of Southern Mississippi says research shows that
feeling isolated as a student may lead to feelings of inadequacy and insecurity, and a lack of confidence
in the student's own abilities.

Demands on Students

Online learning requires increased time-management skills and focus, and less dependence from
learners, according to a 1997 study cited by Valentine. Galusha says that 1980s research found that
people over age 50 appeared to have more discipline and motivation to complete courses, which
suggests that online learning could be a negative experience for some younger students.

Funding Worries

Galusha points out that technology's downsides includes cost, hardware issues, Internet problems and
production of course materials. Students, she says, as well as institutions, worry about availability of
funds. Galusha also cites research that reveals that educational institutions typically don't anticipate
connectivity costs, causing later barriers to online learning.

Quality Questioned

Galusha says that non-online faculty have problems respecting the credibility of online courses. Too
often, online instructors don't take their lesson preparations as seriously as they could, and this lack of
commitment, Valentine states, surely has a profound and negative effect on the quality of online
learning.