According to a recent New York Times article, the rate at which teenagers are currently sending and receiving text messages is higher than ever. During the fourth quarter of 2008, American teenagers sent and received an average of 2,272 text messages each month, according to the Nielsen Company. This averages out to 80 messages per day, which is more than double the average of the previous year. Many teenagers routinely send hundreds of texts every day, which amounts to one every few minutes.
What was alarming to me when I came across this article was that it was not in the technology or culture section of The Times. It was in the health section. Medical professionals believe that too much texting is actually detrimental to physical and mental health. Physicians and psychologists fear that the texting phenomenon is leading to anxiety, distraction in school, falling grades, repetitive stress injury and sleep deprivation.
The Times article caused me to reflect on the extent of text message abuse here on campus. While I don't believe that the issue is as serious with Dartmouth students as it is among the high school and middle school crowds, I do think that there are some disturbing trends on campus involving text message and technology abuse.
One reason that texting may not be as popular at Dartmouth as it is in high schools is because BlitzMail serves as a substitute. While Blitz is incredibly convenient for receiving information regarding campus events, communicating with professors and engaging in witty conversations with friends, there is a time and a place for it. And that should not be classroom time.
If you look out into the sea of laptops during any lecture, you will see BlitzMail open on the vast majority of them. Not only is this disrespectful to the professors, it is also an alarming sign. Have our attention spans really become so short that we're unable to sit through a 65-minute lecture and actually give the speaker our full attention?
Another trend that has become somewhat prevalent on campus over the past year or so has been the emergence of BlackBerrys and iPhones. These and other, similar devices provide users with Internet access conveniently in the palms of their hands. A number of Dartmouth students have begun using these devices to read and send blitzes.
I find this constant attachment to BlitzMail to be both unnecessary and undesirable. We're college students, not investment bankers. We are not yet in the real world, where our immediate response to a client could potentially make or break a multi-million dollar deal. We are not yet chained to that responsibility. And we should enjoy that. We have the luxury of waiting until the next time we're at our computer (which, for most of us, is likely within a few hours, tops) to check Blitz. Furthermore, absence makes the heart grow fonder. Even you addicts out there must admit that logging onto Blitz is undeniably more enjoyable once you've been off of it for a while.
Back to texting. This campus recently saw the launch of the web site rrrage.com which "allows students to post information about events and other subjects online via text message" ("New site, rrrage.com, shares info. on parties," May 19). This is a bit much. Upon hearing about this website, I immediately thought of "Gossip Girl." When reality begins to reflect a satirical teenage soap opera, you know things have gone too far. Doesn't the idea behind rrrage.com defeat the spirit of a night out on the Dartmouth campus? Isn't part of the fun going around with friends to various fraternities and checking out the scene for yourselves running into people and socializing in the process? Dartmouth's campus isn't exactly sprawling, and the majority of frats are conveniently located on the same block.
While we here at Dartmouth may not need to worry about technology's effect on our health, perhaps we should consider its effect on how much we pay attention to our actual lives. So why not put down your cell phone or BlackBerry and actually engage in lectures and enjoy face-to-face time with your friends? I think some houses may be on the right track with their no-cell-phones-in-the-basement policies.
