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August 29, 2006

A brave new collegiate world

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Last Monday, we ran a story about technology on college campuses that was (understandably) overshadowed by the mayhem of an escaped inmate running around Blacksburg and killing two people.

Now that things are sort of back to normal, I wanted to post a little something on the technology story. In the course of reporting it, I talked to several professors at some local colleges -- Radford University, Roanoke College and Virginia Tech -- who had very different opinions about the effects of technology on their students and on the classroom. Some of them embraced the new ways of reaching students, and some were concerned that the gadgets and Web sites were just a distraction.

One of those distractions -- cell phones -- was even the subject of research done by one of the professors I spoke to. Peggy Meszaros, the director of the Center for Information Technology Impacts on Children, Youth, and Families, recently completed a study on college students' use of cell phones. Together with undergraduate students in the Kappa Omicron Nu Honors Society, Meszaros collected surveys from 568 Tech students and reported the following findings:


  • More than 80 percent of the participants said they use their phones between 6 p.m. and 12 midnight, the largest percentage of time that they talked.

  • Almost 80 percent of the students' cell phone bills are paid for by mom and dad.

  • Young women talked with their immediate family members more frequently than anyone else -- an average of 16 to 30 minutes per call. The next most frequently called person for young women was their boyfriend or girlfriend.

  • Young men talked most frequently with their girlfriend or boyfriend -- an average of 16 to 30 minutes per call. Family members or relatives came in second, with an average of 5 to 15 minutes per call.

Meszaros will report more extensive findings on the study, "Cutting the Wireless Cord: Effects of College Student Cell Phone Use and Attachment to Family and Peers," at a November symposium in Minneapolis for the National Council on Family Relations. And as she said a few weeks ago, "The landscape of technology is changing by the minute."

Comments

# 1

[August 30, 2006 10:30 AM]

Patrick Beeson : →http://www.huffyinthestreet.com

Students texting (or IMing) each other was an huge problem when I was teaching large classes during graduate school at the University of Alabama.

We caught many a student cheating during exams using their cell phones as well!

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Mug of Greg Esposito

Rhode Island native and Virginia Tech reporter Greg Esposito posts on everyday college life, trends and issues affecting the 35,000-plus students in the New River Valley and beyond.

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Tim Thornton, who is old enough to have children attending college, is still taking classes and is still fascinated by colleges, the students who populate them and the bureaucrats who operate them. His reporting beat is Radford University.

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Mug of Anna Mallory

West Virginia native Anna Mallory blogs on student life topics at Virginia Tech, Radford University, New River Valley Community College -- and beyond.

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