I took my two nephews down to Indiana University on Friday, just to show them around the joint and to get our fill of the world's best pizza. (Mother Bears, in case you're wondering.) The old place still looks and feels like it did when I was there in ancient times, with one notable exception: Every other student walking by had a cell phone glued to his or her ear.
Of course, when I was in college we had to share one corded dial phone between two dorm rooms, so I'm not surprised that technology has advanced. (I also learned computer programming by writing FORTRAN programs on punch cards, but that's another curmudgeonly story...) It wasn't just the ubiquity of the cell phones that startled me, but rather how they affected the student body. When everyone is talking on a cell phone, no one is interacting with each other. The students were walking around (on a beautiful 60-degree spring day, BTW) in their own personal bubbles, seemingly oblivious to all and everything around them. No social interaction at all, none of the guys were checking out the girls (or vice versa), no one even bothered to say hi or howdy do.
What's the point of going to college if you're not going to share the experience? (In fact, it's the shared experiences that make college worthwhile, IMHO...) If all you do is walk around in your own little world, how are you going to expand your world and your worldview to grow as a person? This could be leading to something quite troubling....
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