addicted to the internet
When I was a freshman I would often meet a person and then not see them for a while. A few weeks later I would bump into them and realize I had no idea what their name was. A few months later I might see them in the dining hall and greet them briefly. A few years later I pass these people and think to myself ‘hey I should know that person’. More often then not, they briefly glance at me and then go their own way and I go on wondering if they were thinking the same thing as me. Of-course all these awkward situations are irrelevant with Mark Zuckerburg’s invention of Facebook. So whatever, my largest hurdle as a freshman is fixed; I can at least revel in the fact that I lived in a time before Facebook. The second biggest problem I had with student life freshman year was the overabundance of Internet. RPI should cut the cable.
RPI my take pride as the ‘most connected’ school, but seriously instant messaging people 3 rooms down the hall is stupid. Recently the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) in Mumbai decided to turn off Internet from 11pm to 12:30pm in all student dorms.[1] The dean Prakash Gopalan was quoted saying “The old hostel culture of camaraderie and socializing among students is gone. This is not healthy in our opinion.” Many students at RPI that don’t find community in Greek organizations or other campus clubs often spend lots of time in their room on the Internet. Turning off the Internet for a significant period of time during the day will force students out of their room and help reduce social awkwardness at RPI.
This would probably cause some people to get nuts and hate the school, but at least students would unite in thinking it’s a retarded policy. It’s not like people don’t complain about the school already — you can’t pass a tour group without someone at least commenting quietly “don’t come here.” Any good parent would recognize turning off the Internet as a good thing. In the end, people would be happier and complain less because now they have to talk to people in the real world, possibly developing friends in the process.
You might worry about students that really need to do work requiring the Internet. That’s not a problem; we all have laptops and could get online in dorm study rooms or elsewhere on campus. Jacks could even be installed in dorm hallways and students can all hang out in the hall if they want online.
[1] http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/6459295.stm
This was my entry for the Union Challenge 6: “Describe the largest hurdle in your student life experience at Rensselaer and propose a solution to the obstacle.” It was satire, but I’m starting to believe it would work.