Why does fate necessitate that the Computing Help Desk becomes inundated with broken computers during midterms and finals? The love-hate relationships most students share with their computers illustrate our generation's dependence on technology. It feels like the lifespan of computers rival that of goldfish these days. Technological devices are no longer just machines, rather extensions of our bodies.
Enough gadgets, including iPods, digital cameras and cell phones, have become vital tools of everyday life that our generation requires cargo pants to simply carry all the essential technology. The youth today feel naked without their technological conveniences.
The need to visit two very different places on campus (Parkhurst Hall and Computing Services) produces the same level of dread in Dartmouth students. Nearly everyone has experienced the hardship of being without a computer or having a hard drive lost. Computers monopolize students' lives both academically and socially. After long afternoons working in front of computers in Baker Library, the same weary-eyed students return home only to stare in front of the same computer browsing the internet for hours.
The fact that the entertainment, communication and academic realms have been efficiently condensed into single devices makes the relationship between students and technology unique from previous generations. For our generation, just one computer virus will inflict the damage analogous to simultaneously disabled telephones, televisions, radios, record players and typewriters in our parents' collegiate years.
The newfangled technologies oxymoronically offer the mass production of individuality. Our computers store the embodiments of our unique individual identity. When hard drives crash, precious pictures that capture memories and school work that embody our intellectual capabilities are all lost and gone forever.
iPods are also becoming increasingly ubiquitous. These gadgets are able to hold all the favorite music, television shows and movies of an individual student. As iPods are turned on, students often unfortunately turn off the outside world. On fourth floor of Berry Library, Dartmouth students are astonishingly able to listen to music while reading from thick textbooks. Students walk across the Green to their own personalized soundtrack, often unaware of their surroundings and unintentionally snubbing passing friends. How many students turn off their iPods after returning to their dorms, only to immediately turn on iTunes on their laptops in their rooms?
Exercising students at Alumni Gym can be found enjoying their digital music players and later simultaneously listening to music while ordering food at Food Court. At the Dartmouth Skiway, various skiers and snowboarders (with Mountain Dew in hand) don the hallmark white wires streaming from their ears beneath their wool hats. As technology dominates our everyday lives, our generation never has to experience the sounds of silence. In fact, with iPods, students can listen to Simon and Garfunkel's "Sounds of Silence" anywhere at anytime.
With the democratization of such technologies, there is no reason to be bored or unoccupied in the modern world -- which is exactly the problem.
Technology has the power to connect individuals, yet also the ability to isolate at the same time. With the customizing and individualizing nature of modern technology, innovations have made inroads into once-group social activities. Students can now have all their favorite entertainment on their laptop, rendering the communal enjoyment of movies and television increasingly obsolete. Our generation's love affair with technology can be counterproductive to innovation's inclusive possibilities.
Despite the clear benefit of easy interaction, the supremacy of electronic communications, especially instant messaging, has diluted personal social skills. The quality, and not quantity, of conversation ultimately matters. The ability to have an articulate tte--tte in person is a virtue that no technology can replace, yet our generation practices the valuable talent less and less in everyday life. How many students have heard friends insert "LOL" and "TTYL" during face-to-face conversations? The seemingly mandatory Blitz or instant message conversation has now become the romantic prerequisite to approaching an attractive member of the opposite sex in person.
To survive the "information age," our electronically savvy generation must resist building digital walls around our individual lives. Oh yeah, it is also a good idea to invest in modern life insurance (i.e. an external hard drive).
