BY JOELLEN COLLINS
Some adults bemoan what they perceive as the short attention span of today’s younger generation. They abhor the idea of the current sound-bite mentality, the quest for instant gratification and easy access to information via the Web, and the overuse of social media to connect with others instead of deeper one-to-one interchanges. I do not entirely agree: my recent teaching has impressed me with my students’ work ethics and their grasp of world issues (due, in part, to increased insight about the world gained from the Internet).
The reality is that sophisticated technology is here to stay, in spite of wishes by older generations to recreate simpler times. Many of us will try to keep up with new and complicated gimmicks. Perhaps in another column I will note my happy acceptance of many new inventions, but for now I want to ponder one sad example of our dependence on technology.
Recently, a friend mentioned a new app designed to locate an empty place at a school cafeteria lunch table. One scenario posits a student so unwelcome at lunchtime that he or she has to hope GPS technology will ease the daunting thought of another rejection. My heart aches for this symbolic kid and his isolation.
I felt comfortable with my peers and do not recall a classmate shunning me because of my asthma and overly skinny frame but, nonetheless, I was often the last kid picked for relay teams. I also blushed horribly when I had to occupy third base in my baggy red bloomers while my “crush,” a senior football player, sat on the nearby bleachers during the second lunch hour yelling “Go, Twig!” Fortunately, for as long as I can recall, I have had dear friends with whom I could cry, recline on hillsides looking at clouds, and dream of a time when our wishes might be realized. I did, indeed, enjoy a simpler time.
When I would get an unwanted call or a visit from a boy I didn’t want to see, my mother wouldn’t let me off the hook by pretending I wasn’t home. She advised me to communicate directly, finding my own tactful words. He would manage without me, she said, rolling her eyes. I learned from her how to handle difficult situations in person. While it may be easier to talk via texting, I prefer more human interchanges.
In my first two years at Occidental College, my entire class was required to sit each morning in an assembly hall for a six-unit course (24 total) called History of Civilization. The required textbooks were only available in the library and had to be read there, so we spent many after-school hours inhabiting different nooks, forming bonds and learning about each other as well as history.
Being so often physically near my classmates helped me in my transfer to UCLA, a challenging place to find a niche and belong. In spite of the 17,000 students, I seldom felt isolated or estranged from my fellow students and enjoyed our direct contacts and communications. The last kid picked can survive.
