Loading ...In a report last month, WebProNews challenged viewers to see how long they could go without Facebook, Twitter, instant messaging, and any other time-consuming social platform. The intent of the story wasn’t to say that these social tools are bad. Instead, it was meant to help people understand how much they depend on social and how it could lead to a lack of productivity.
This week, ironically, Harrisburg University of Science and Technology in Pennsylvania issued a similar challenge to its students. Dr. Eric Darr, University Provost and Executive Vice President, enforced a block on all social media platforms across the campus for a week.
The university is a strong advocate of social media, but it wants students to be aware of their social usage and their reasons for utilizing it. Although students can access social media through their smartphones and off campus, the university hopes that they will honor the academic exercise.
“This is one week and one particular set of exercises to help students think critically about this type of technology that we call social media,” said Dr. Darr.
The university included a social media summit in the week’s events. Students are also asked to write a reflective paper about their week’s experience. Incidentally, Dr. Darr told WPN that students have already told him that they feel less stressed than usual.
Could you live without these social platforms for a week? Is this an experiment we all could learn from?
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Interesting video. I could honestly live without it, but I have to have email. I cannot live without it or do business without it. Social media is important on all kinds of levels, people don’t realize the true impact of it, and the people who have are making money doing it! I could live without it. I have a Twitter, Facebook accounts and I use instant messaging, have for years with yahoo. So this little experiment probably would leave me frazzled having to communicate with others. This day and age, electronic media is where it is at. It makes life much easier.
I just got my very first Titter account this week and there is no way I will ever be getting a FaceBook account. Getting an account there just sounds way to scary. I am 46 and build websites and I actually download my email and not look at them though a browser. By most eKids I am sure they would view me as a dino as far as the net goes, even though I have been involved with it in some way since 1996 and even before that I ran a BBS, which most of the eKids would not even know what was. Ahh the days of 48 baud and the sound that the modem made and the glee of watching a 50k image show up on your screen literally pixel by pixel to see what it was.
If they had that to deal with I am sure they would change their views quickly about what is and is not important on the online world. For thousands of years we lived without it and didn’t even get online social stuff until about 25 years ago. I wont even let my some have a phone with texting ability. I want him to be a kid, not a Net zombie
No one need at school Social Media Network. it’s a no sense…
This is a good proof that there is a real illness in our society:
Social Internet Media Network replace the poverty of real Human Social Network..
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The idea in the video is great. I agree with the Dr. that today’s social skills as far as human to human contact is bad and will only get worse. People are relying too much on social media. Do I like social media? Yes. I especially like it for business. I have seen and could see even more growth opportunities with using social media as part of your business platform. Coupons, specials, deals, social media gets it out to consumers fast and efficient. The downfall of social media is on the personal level. At first I thought wow, to keep in touch with family and friends throughout the country by sharing pictures, videos and stories will be great. Then it turned into EVERYONE giving every little detail about every happening in their life on a day to day basis. It is just tiresome and it gets old. I care about the people I know, believe me, but I honestly would live a normal good life without knowing what everyone ate for breakfast or that they got a hair cut after work, blah, blah, blah. It is just over used and blowout out of proportion. If people used it sparingly and lived a normal life outside of it I wouldn’t mind, but when you are having a face to face conversation with someone and the whole time they are playing with their phone do to social media, it just old.
It is about time that someone tried to show these kids there is something outside of cyber space. I have worked in computers and the web field for years and don’t have any accounts on twitter, facebook, myspace, foursquare or any of those other social networking sites out there. They are a distraction an don’t mean anything in real life. Does anyone really care that you follow 25000 people of Twitter or that you have 50000 supposed friends on Facebook? The answer is NO!. This just need to become the norm anywhere.
Well done!, this is a life lesson for the youngers, now we should advance to the next step and turn off the tv (I did it for the last 20 years and I feel gr8 about it).
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One boy a boy; two boys half a boy; three boys no boy… Not sure about friends; but 10,000 seems to be a social joke! I have LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter, but I spend little time managing them (and yes, they have been mostly a distraction). I think sooner or later people will wake up and realize the negative social impacts of these so-called social media. I am trying my best to teach my children to stay away from social media, and focus on face-to-face communication skills. It will become handy one day, when the society is in desperate need of individuals with real people skills to CONTROL those who rely on texting to express themselves