I feel like an old fogey when I complain about technology. But, I am going to complain about technology (a bit, anyway). More to the point, however, technology is the point of this instalment of my blog posts on advice for freshers.
Many of my students would need to be surgically separated from their technology. For my part, I have a laptop, and a smart phone, and a tablet. But the thing I love most about them is the off switch. Electronic communication is just no substitute for spending time with real people. For talking to people in person. One of the worst social offences, in my view, is checking your phone whilst someone is talking to you. Put it on vibrate and put it in your pocket! Unless you’re waiting for an important call and have told the person that you’re speaking to that you might have to get it, leave it alone even if it vibrates. If you spend freshers’ week and the first few weeks of term constantly playing on your phone (even if it’s just ’cause you’re nervous!) you’ll look unapproachable and miss out on the chance to catch someone’s eye and get a conversation going. Resist the urge and leave it in your handbag/pocket – distract yourself by smiling at someone instead :).
When it comes to lectures and tutorials, I know that many students prefer to take notes on laptops. My (controversial) advice is to handwrite (at least some of) them instead. I don’t suggest this because I’m a real dinosaur, but because students tend to regret being so reliant on typing when it comes to exams, which, in most universities, continue to be written by hand unless a student has special exemption. Furthermore, it’s just SO tempting to check Facebook whilst the lecturer goes off on a tangent. Only problem is, in the time it’s taken you to ‘like’ your schoolfriends’ freshers’ photos, the lecturer has gone back on track and you have missed something crucial. You can’t go on Facebook from pen and paper, so there’s no temptation.
So by all means take your technology to university. but don’t let it get in the way of what’s happening right in front of you. Don’t be tempted to be messaging someone 3 hours away, when you could be talking to someone three feet away. When you’ve left university, you’ll remember late nights, sitting with friends, laughing until you cry about the most ridiculous things. You won’t remember nights where you paid no attention to what was going on around you because you were pre-occupied with gadgetry.
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