WHEN ONLINE LEARNING COMMUNITIES FAIL TO CONNECT

Online educational communities are often seen as spaces that extend collaboration and connection beyond the classroom. However, the same platforms that bring some students together can leave others feeling unseen, exposed, or excluded. Specifically for adolescents, whose well-being is closely tied to experiences of acceptance and rejection, these interactions do matter. This theoretical synthesis examines the shadow side of digital educational interaction in secondary education. Drawing on theories of alienation, research on adolescent social development and mental health, and studies of online learning, ostracism, cyberbullying, and technostress, it explores how school alienation (estrangement from teachers, classmates, and learning) can take shape online. Key pathways include unanswered posts, unnoticed withdrawal, the lasting visibility of students’ contributions, peer exclusion, perceived surveillance, and the fatigue of constant connectivity. Evidence from emergency remote teaching suggests that these risks may be greatest for students who are already marginalised or disadvantaged. The synthesis proposes a conceptual model linking risk factors and mechanisms to student well-being, while highlighting potential safeguards which are caring teacher presence, clear community norms, thoughtful group formation, and equitable access. Thus, technology is not inherently alienating but poorly designed or weakly facilitated online communities can reproduce, and sometimes intensify, the exclusion that adolescents already experience at school.