Washington Post: "On Campus, Trying to Connect"

[Chedva]

<p><a href=“http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/08/10/AR2007081001820.html[/url]”>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/08/10/AR2007081001820.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>

Today’s freshmen will have made e-contact with their roommates before they arrive on campus. But does so much connectivity make the transition harder?
. . . </p>

<p>[M]any of the country’s 2 million or more incoming freshmen are taking the high-tech approach to college camaraderie. But over-reliance on technology, experts say, can also hamper their adjustment by making it easy for some students to hold too tight to the life and friends they’ve left behind.</p>

<p>“The transition to college is naturally uncomfortable,” says Harlan Cohen, author of “The Naked Roommate: And 107 Other Issues You Might Run Into in College.” “Because of technology, you can stay in touch with the people who love you the most, and it has become so easy to use that as a crutch. It’s really easy to get caught behind the fifth wall of technology, which isolates students.”</p>

<p>For the incoming crop of college students, who can’t recall life before the Internet and cellphones, that’s a particular trap. Through social networking sites, instant messaging and other forms of e-communication, they’ll figure out which roommate is bringing the microwave and whether or not to steer clear of politics. And when times get tough, they’ll rest assured that they can call an old friend, text a quick question or even set up a webcam for a date with their hometown honey.</p>

<p>But that, psychologists and college life experts say, may leave them less emotionally available to confront new challenges, test their beliefs or engage in serious introspection – what college was once thought to be about.</p>

<p>“Too often,” Cohen says, “students are physically in one place but emotionally in another.”

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[AdmissionsDaniel]

<p>The Baltimore Sun ran a related story earlier this week – though it took a different spin on the topic:</p>

<p><a href=“http://www.baltimoresun.com/technology/bal-te.md.facebook13aug13,0,2046747.story[/url]”>http://www.baltimoresun.com/technology/bal-te.md.facebook13aug13,0,2046747.story&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

[Marian]

<p>I think this is largely nonsense.</p>

<p>We don’t worry about social experience of kids who attend their own state university – where they may well arrive with an established network of friends and know the names and faces of several hundred people on campus. These kids could easily hold on tightly to the life they’ve left behind (which, in many cases, they didn’t actually leave behind but brought with them to campus). Yet they seem to thrive.</p>

<p>So why should we worry about kids making Facebook friends?</p>

[newmassdad]

<p>Ah, the yearning for the good old days…when kids rarely went far from home (except for the upper class, who went to boarding schools) because it was too hard to stay connected to family…when kids only moved out when they were married, (which often occurred quite young, too)…the lost art of letter writing…</p>

<p>I always wonder what the purpose of such articles is? To alarm parents that their kids, too, have a chance to grow up psychological cripples (or whatever) just like the parents had a chance to do the same?</p>

<p>New things are constantly changing the way we live. Heck, whole parts of our country died out just because of changes in techology (Catskills were a vacation destination 40 years ago. cheap flights changed that…). USPS is losing volume to email. Auto repair shops no longer make money on tune ups (used to need to do them 1-2X/year!). So what?</p>

<p>No, it is us parents who don’t get it - we don’t understand a completely new way of interacting, communicating and exploring. Just like we don’t understand how a previous generation could spend an evening gathered around a radio! Or how generations in years back lived by the solar calendar - to bed at dusk.</p>

[limner]

<p>Thanks for posting this, Chedva. I was surprised; I’d expected the WaPo article to run along the line of the Baltimore Sun’s angle,which–to me–seems the bigger story. Kids today are making friends at their new schools before they even arrive on campus. Regarding the WaPo article, I think that kids with strong “hometown honey” attachments will be communicating one way or another–by phone in the dark ages before personal computers and by smoke signals if all else fails.</p>

<p>I know that “meeting” fellow 2011ers on-line has alleviated some of my S’s anxiety about his new school.</p>