Big Mobile Phone On Campus

from the they're-everywhere... dept

Wed, Oct 29th 2003 10:13am — Mike Masnick

You just can't get away from them, it seems. More and more students have been showing up at college with mobile phones - and some universities have decided to ditch landlines entirely and just give their students mobile phones (often negotiating much better rates with carriers). However, some are finding it more expensive than landlines - and also noticing that many students already show up with mobile phones, making the provided ones redundant. At the same time, mobile phone use on campus is creating other unexpected issues. While there have been plenty of stories about kids cheating via mobile phone, professors say the bigger problem is kids letting their phones ring in class. Sometimes students will answer the phone right in the classroom, though often they run out of the room. One student even had the nerve to ask the professor what she missed while she was gone. Professors are fighting back, threatening to kick students out of class or lower their grades if their phones go off. What still amazes me is that people haven't shifted to a "default" vibrate mode. If I'm out of the house, my phone is in vibrate mode - and for etiquette's sake, I've always assumed that the rest of the world would figure this out as well - but with the increasing trends for special "ringtones", it seems we're going in the opposite direction. Another issue that some have with mobile phones on campus is that it's making it more difficult for some families to cut the tether between the parents and the student. They end up talking on the phone all the time - which presents a problem for both sides. The parents have more trouble "letting go" and the students have more trouble becoming independent and learning to deal with their own issues.

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EternalStudent, 29 Oct 2003 @ 2:22pm

As a lifetime schooler...
"We worry that students use the cell phone as an out," says Adam Weinberg, a dean at Colgate University. "When they feel uncomfortable, they pick up the phone, rather than ... starting a conversation with the person next to them."
Amen. I've definitely seen a change in student sociality since I started college ... um 10 years ago (blush). You can't get anybody to give you even a friendly hello anymore, because they're stuck in their happy cell-phone land.
Also, (don't know if they are legal, but) I think cell-phone interfering transmitters would be great in class rooms to avoid the interrupting rings.
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shawn, 29 Oct 2003 @ 6:16pm

Re: As a lifetime schooler...
It doesn't seem that me that people are particularly unsocial now that they've got cell phones, they just have this cell phone addiction that they have to get over first. It's like a replacement for smoking. Now instead of going outside and having a cigarette right after class, 60% of the kids flip open their phones as soon as they leave the building. Honestly though, I can't imagine what they have going on in their lives that it's so important that they make a call right away. I've sat through a lot of classes, and it's very rare that anything so incredibly exciting happens during one of them that I feel the need to immediately call anyone and tell them about it. Maybe I'm just lazy.
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aNonMooseCowherd, 29 Oct 2003 @ 6:37pm

built-in phones
No one will need to worry about ringtones once phones are implanted in babies' heads at birth.
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