Can’t work today - my WiFi has gone down

New research of the nation’s teens has revealed the top modern-day excuses, regularly wheeled out, with “the dog ate my homework” featuring nowhere on the list. In fact, tech failures take the bulk of the blame, with a fifth (18 percent) choosing to pretend that their WiFi was down, while more than one in ten (12 percent) have claimed their computer kept crashing – and 12 percent say they are unable to hand in work because their printer was on the brink.

Not being able to connect the laptop to the printer (seven percent), phone running out of battery (five percent) and losing the laptop charger (five percent) also make an appearance in the top twenty modern homework excuses. Yet some of the old classics have stood the test of time, with ‘I thought it was due tomorrow’ (37 percent), ‘I did it but I left it at home’ (37 percent), ‘I didn’t understand what to do’ (34 percent) and ‘I thought it was in my bag’ (26 percent) emerging as popular excuses.

Being sick (25 percent) and getting too much homework from another class (16 percent) are other ways teens try and prolong a deadline. It’s no surprise that two thirds (69 percent) of the secondary school students, polled by leading online tuition provider MyTutor, agree that technology is a good excuse for not handing in written work, with a further 25 percent admitting they blame technology regularly.

One in four (25 percent) of the teens polled complain their homework is simply too difficult, while nine in 10 (93 percent) admit that they get easily distracted by apps such as Snapchat, TikTok and YouTube when trying to focus on studies, an average of 14 minutes at a time.