Do you remember the time of rotary phones? What about the U.S. Postal Service? We used to use these services to stay in touch with friends and family, usually to plan times and places to meet up. Cell phones, email, social networking sites, etc. are really convenient ways to keep in contact with important people in our lives, but with these technologies so easily available, the part where we meet up and can actually see living breathing people is becoming a little like the rotary phone.
The reality is, we may have hundreds of contacts in our phone or on our Facebook, but there are hundreds of others right in front of us that we may not be seeing. New technology allows us to communicate more often, but when we're always hurrying through a text or writing a quick email, some of the fun of communicating and catching up with friends is lost.
Imagine how much more fun class would be if, instead of finding our seat and getting our phones out to text, we left them in our bags and talked to the person next to us. Pretty soon we'd have someone to sit by everyday, who we can borrow notes from when we miss class, and who knows, maybe we'll even hang out with them outside of class.
Our "friend list" doesn't have to be defined by who Facebook says is our friend. WE can decide that. Students in our classes don't just have to be other students. They can be our friends if we make it happen. People do actually exist, breathe, and eat outside of the digital realm!
NightOwl
