As a result of the coronavirus-induced quarantine, the world has gone virtual. The pandemic has caused students and teachers to abandon their classrooms and open their laptops. Zoom, the previously unheard of and unused chatting platform, has now become the center of our classes and work life. But despite its prominence in our daily lives, we’re all still a little confused.

The Zoom app comes with fun features, my personal favorite being the ability to pin my friends’ videos and watch them for the whole hour-long period. However, I recently found out the host of the meeting is able to see who and when you pin someone, which is embarrassing for me to say the least. Alas, we all have had our share of struggles with using Zoom at one point or another and can relate to the hilarious moments Zoom has caused. For privacy reasons, several students’ names will be kept anonymous in the stories recalled today.

Accidentally leaving your microphone on mute is the new “reply all”, and some of us have seen the worst of it. A student in the junior class recalls a time during his AP Psychology class where someone forgot to mute their microphone. “We were all writing this in-class essay thing and just doing our own thing when we hear someone making all this noise. So I go back to the Zoom and see this guy I don’t know has his mic on and he’s humming and talking to himself,” junior said.

If students choose to leave their cameras off, nobody knows what they’re up to during class, unless they forget to turn their mic off. Senior Emma Helgeson witnessed, or should I say heard, something we all fear during one of her first Zoom classes. “Last year, near the end of the year, one of my friends had her camera off and I guess she was just walking around her house and had to go to the bathroom. I’m not sure what happened but her microphone ended up being on and used the toilet, and we all heard it. It was the funniest thing I’ve seen,” Helgeson said.

In times like this, it’s hard not to sit back in wonder at the free entertainment you’re receiving and laugh. However, these little mistakes can happen to anyone. It’s important to make that effort and help people out; whether that be by chatting someone privately to let them know or coming off of mute yourself to stop them before things get out of hand, you really can make a difference.