The birth of the radio in the 1920s marked the birth of mass communication. Ever since communication has come a long way with video conferencing becoming a popular option for people away from each other to communicate. Since then video conferencing has been used a variety of reasons, for business meetings, and for communicating with distant family. One thing that video conferencing cannot replace, however, are schools. Unless a particular student cannot attend the school for a long period, under no circumstances can video conferencing replace live classrooms. While it may seem a popular option, video conferencing takes away from the teacher the ability to control a classroom and would likely result in a chaotic environment, isn't as reliable as a classroom, and takes away the social lives that schools and classrooms provide.

One of the biggest reasons not to consider schools based upon video conferencing is the lack of control the teachers have upon the classroom. The biggest and the most obvious problem that arises from online classes is setting up a standard and equal learning environment. This is especially hard when it comes to regulating testing, and making sure that every student is given a fair chance to prove his/her skills. While the technology exists for a teacher to be able to lock the testing screen, it would be particularly hard to take the same measures against high school students, most of whom have a phone or another device. Even if difficulties pertaining to testing were to be ignored, it would still be rather difficult for the teacher to ensure that every student is able to understand and is able to learn properly. Questions would erupt without direction from everywhere, and in no orderly fashion, making it impossible for the teacher to properly tend to every student. This would be particularly difficult in younger students in their first few years of learning upon whom it would be very difficult to establish rules. Another challenging problem that these younger students would pose is being able to properly use and diagnose problems with video conferencing technology. Despite the unprecedented technological revolution that has taken place over the course of the past few years, not everyone has access to the same level. Video conferencing requires internet speeds that not all people can afford. Even if the county or the state were step in to help at this stage, it still makes it impossible to properly function due to how unpredictable the internet can sometimes be. Often Internet Service Providers will have maintainance or server issues causing servers to go down disabling entire areas at a time from having access to the internet. This makes online classrooms all the more chaotic with each student traversing the course at different paces, making it very hard for the instructor a to establish an environment that will not severely hinder the learning process of the school's students. All in all, the issues with reliability and lack of control create a rather chaotic environment, in which it becomes difficult for the student to not dissociate himself/herself from learning altogether. The unpredictability and rather disastrous classroom will breed contempt for learning altogether, gradually moving the student away from paying attention or doing work. This cycle is all the more worse in online classes, because the teachers cannot quite encourage the students into paying attention or doing their work as they would in a disciplined classroom. The lack of control sheds light onto perhaps what might be the biggest problem with virtual classrooms: instilling values.

Online classrooms make it very difficult to discipline the students or establish order. Another thing online classrooms fail to instill is the importance of social connections and relationships that schools establish. Online classrooms do not make the students effective citizens. This is because video conferencing does not breed friendships between the students. Not only are they lonesome as they try to wrap their mind around boggling concepts, students do not learn what it is like to work together. This makes it exceedingly hard for them to work together with anyone in the future. Video conferencing takes away any partner or group oriented activities because it is very hard to monitor them. Not only does this disable the students from working together, it creates a situation in which it is hard to make leaders out of children. Normally in a classroom, when working together, students who posses the leadership qualities hold the group together delegating tasks to their peers and making sure the group works together in a cohesive fashion. This is of the utmost importance; video conferencing cannot make effective leaders of the future. Just as video conferencing takes away the relationship between the students, it also takes away the relationship of mentor and a student between the teacher and the student. In such a situation, the teachers are no longer effective guides who can help the students, they remain distant instructors who tell them what to do. This makes it near impossible to instill important values in children that will keep them from doing the wrong thing.

While online classrooms may happen at the luxury of the students' homes, they simply do not function properly. While the student may be home, online classrooms lead them to disassociate themselves from learning altogether driven by a chaotic and unpredictable learning environment. In addition, online classroom also make it impossible to get students to work together, to make leaders out of them or to present to them effective mentors in the form of teachers. This last factor negates any other counterargument :even it better technology that would prevent cheating or take away the unreliability, video conferencing cannot give students the social factors they need in order to be successful.