College students these days arrive on campus wired. They have iPod headphones in their ears, cell phones open for texting in their hands, and laptops in their bags. Stroll into any dining hall, library, or grassy knoll and you will see the area dotted with students hunched over their glowing laptop screens, tapping away on a their keyboards as they respond to e-mails, work on research papers, update their Facebook statuses, or watch the latest sensational YouTube video. Those who are not laptop carriers might be tapping away on the tiny keyboard of their Internet-capable mobile phones. It is clear that technology plays a big part in many students’ lives, but sometimes, technology can negatively affect the public atmosphere.
This infiltration of portable technology into everyday life is relatively new. College students have only had access to such devices within the past decade. This may explain why technology etiquette is still something that people are trying to figure out. Technology etiquette is the polite and courteous way of using technology in the public realm. It is not an uncommon sight to see a group of college friends sitting around the dining hall table silently, each texting on his or her cell phone instead of talking to one another. Clearly, technology etiquette standards should exist, especially on a college campus full of other tech-users.
One of the most basic things that demonstrates a student’s knowledge of technology etiquette in a social setting is to know when to stay away from that technology. When talking to someone else, one should not be typing, dialing, or be otherwise engaged in something that would distract the conversation. But technology etiquette extends even into classrooms. Students should not be texting on their cell phones during class. Even if their device is on a vibrate setting, the constant sound of a cell phone vibrating is sufficient enough to distract other students. Laptop users, on the other hand, should either place something over their screen so that other students cannot see what the user is looking at or avoid constantly opening distracting web pages or games. Some instructors even have a separate portion of the classroom set aside for laptop users to sit as their activities may distract non-notebook students.
The fact is, technology is undoubtedly an important and inescapable part of life. But students on campus should not be shut into their technological bubble with disregard for everyone else. Instead, they should look up from their monitors once in awhile and practice basic technological etiquette.
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