When you physically attend a live lecture, you’ll be surrounded by other people, most of whom will be paying attention to the lecturer (or at least appearing to). This tends to make paying attention become “the default” for you, so you need less will power to stay focused yourself. By contrast, when you’re alone watching a lecture online (or trying to read a textbook), you must “will yourself to pay attention” (Kling, 2020).
This is one answer to In what senses are lectures effective?
Q. Why does Arnold Kling believe it’s easier to pay attention during in-person lectures than during video lectures?
A. Others are paying attention to the speaker, which makes paying attention instinctive, not requiring as much active maintenance.
Kling, A. (2020, July 27). Isolation, attention, and totalitarianism. Askblog. http://www.arnoldkling.com/blog/isolation-and-totalitarianism/
Via Agnes Callard: https://twitter.com/agnescallard/status/1288157015194447879?s=12 “File under: conformism is, by and large, a good thing.”