Pressing pause on procrastination

Study livestreamers like Umesh Saini and Vaishali Saini have created a sense of kinship online with those who intend to study and blow off some steam.

It’s 9 am and Varsha Rana is about to begin studying. Her study table setup looks like this: Motivational posters, books, and sticky notes on a bulletin board. But there’s also a tripod, camera, microphone, and a cooling pad ­– all to help Rana livestream how she is preparing for the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET) exam on September 12. Streamed for almost four hours daily, these live videos don’t have much going on in them except for her taking notes or reading a textbook. Yet, thousands of students from all over the country join in to feel less alone as they prepare for gruelling exams.

Called ‘Study with me live’, these videos have been cropping up on YouTube over the past few months. Streamers claim it helps stay focused when you know others are watching and using the video to motivate themselves too.

For example, Meerut-based Rana started streaming in January. Her goal: To beat procrastination and the pandemic blues. With every video she has streamed, the 19-year-old got one step closer and can now study for 12 hours with ease. “I can’t back out once I commit because I’m accountable to those who join in,” she explains. When Rana struggles to stay upbeat, words of encouragement from her viewers can go a long way.

Structured studying

Said to originate in South Korea, this genre (called gongbang, which loosely translates to ‘study broadcast’) is emerging as a reliable study buddy in these times. Umesh and Vaishali Saini, the brother-sister duo behind the study channel NCERT Kaksha, say this trend was popular with Korean YouTubers even before the pandemic but has picked up steam in India after 2020. They started these videos after noticing how their student subscribers were struggling to stick to a schedule. “So we started studying together and as exams neared, we began a 24x7 livestream,” says 23-year-old Umesh.

So no matter what time of day a student visits the livestream, they know they might find a company on the other side of the screen. Currently, it’s 19-year-old Vaishali who sits in front of the camera from 10 am to 3 am as she prepares for her BSc and banking entrance exams. On hours when she is asleep, a teddy bear occupies her spot.

Most of these videos have a live chat option, where viewers can check in on each other. That’s not all. Often, a chatbot is employed to incentivise the process. “It keeps track of how many hours a student has studied on the stream. They get points too, like one hour is equal to 100 points,” explains Umesh.

There is also a timer for the pomodoro method, where 60 or 90 minutes are spent focussing on a task (or a chapter/subject) without distractions. This is followed by a 10-minute break. “Sometimes we have musical timeouts in the live chat where I sing so that we can start the next session feeling fresh,” adds Vaishali.

But not every student hangs on till the end of the stream. The Saini siblings’ streams, which see students all the way from Class 8 to those preparing for competitive exams, have some who join them just for a few hours. “10 pm to 1 am is a popular time slot,” says Umesh.

According to Meghana Devotta, a psychotherapist, these videos leverage technology to create a support system. “The pandemic has affected everyone’s bandwidth to deal with anything heavy. While studying, you have to rely on yourself to be diligent, which could lead to self-blame if you let yourself down. But a livestream creates a shared sense of responsibility. You can just log in and get into a state of focused flow,” she says.

It’s this feature that helped Aman Derkar in the board exams this year. The 15-year-old from Chandrapur was even able to give his schedule a 180-degree spin. “I used to sleep late, wake up late, and spend all my time gaming. But when I found these livestreams, I set a better routine where I dedicated 10 hours daily to study,” says Derkar, who is now in Class 11 and still occasionally watches such video.

Though strangers on the internet, these students have found a sense of kinship with each other. Most who join in refer to the streamer as ‘didi’ or ‘bhaiya’ while asking them for study hacks. Perhaps Derkar sums it up best, “I feel like a family with them. We’re all determined to make our futures bright.”