Article: University of Central Florida students freak out when they go tech-free

Mary Ann Murdoch, who teaches English composition at the University of Central Florida, had one of her classes go tech-free for a week. Tanya Caldwell at the Orlando Sentinel, wrote about their experience. The rules were:

No cell phones, iPods, portable CD players, text messaging, e-mail, computers, TVs, DVDs, video games.

THE EXCEPTIONS:

Computers and cell phones could be used for work and school. Land-line phones and radios were OK, too.

The results where that 24 students (out of 26) were not able to make it through the week without their technology. Only two students were able to live by the rules for the five days.

I'm quoted in the article:

It's like giving up meat or giving up something for Lent. You want to see how you could get along without it. It's more about limiting it than eliminating it.

The older generation needs to adapt to what the younger generations' technologies are, because the technology is never going away.

Unfortunately, some of the points I made, when talking to the reporter, didn't make it into the article. Could they limit their usage? No, not only because some of them didn't want to, but also because their friends and family hadn't given up technology. Using the Lent analogy, it is easier to give up meat on Friday, if your entire family is doing it. But what if you are the only one? That makes the change difficult. And since the assignment had exceptions built in, I suspect that may have automatically made it more difficult. (Is it a sweet if it is a breakfast food or only when I eat it for a dessert?)

They also didn't know what to do instead of using technology. Yes, some did useful things, but some just did anything in order to stay occupied. Like all diets, they were doomed.

As for the second point I made, a few commenters on the article have jumped all over that! Yes, a massive power outage can make technology go away. That wasn't the point. The clocks are not going to turn back to a previous less-technology focused era. Our grandparents had to get used to the technology our parents used. Our parents had to adopt to the technology we used. And now we must adopt to the technology that our children are using. That is the way it has always worked.

I wonder if Ms. Murdoch could have reached her goals of the assignment in a different way. She is quoted as saying:

I just think that to be a complete and whole human being, you have to be able to interact with other human beings. Technology is the new family. It's become the new computer-chip fabric of our lives.

Could she have built a different assignment that created face-to-face interactions, rather than technology interactions? Could she have used information on how the different generations have used technology in order to get the students to think about technology differently? Yes. And I think they would have gotten much more out of the experience.

By the way, I asked the reporter if Ms. Murdoch was willing to become hyper-connected for a week, in order to walk in the shoes of her students. Wouldn't that be an interesting experiment?

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