Students abuse campus conveniences

By Ryan Borba
The Collegian

THE GOOD OLD days. I know I can’t picture having to use an actual typewriter to do term papers or write stories. I also can’t imagine life without Wikipedia or the Internet at all to help me find information I can poorly cite later.

A list of newfangled conveniences could go on forever, and you get the picture. We all know life sucked back then, right? Most of us probably think this way, and this is why it’s sometimes infuriating to be a student in these times — the era of convenience.

Fresno State has kept up with the times and allows us to check important student info, pay bills, register for classes and do tons of other things with the power of the Internet. We can even use computers on campus.

But there are some who would take advantage of such gracious generosity from the university. And you know who you are. Nothing better to do between those lower G.E. elective classes?

You should be ashamed. Please stop killing time at the USU computer station. Some of us have more important things to do and need a computer for just a few minutes.

Guess which Web sites are onscreen most frequently while other students wait patiently in those awkwardly shaped, uncomfortable metal chairs to take care of some important student business online. Tom has created a monster — an apparently volatile, Energizer Bunny-like monster capable of who-knows-what.

At the very least, this culmination of everything wrong with young people today needs to be contained to the household or the work place, where it’s perfectly OK to waste time.

There is a fine line between convenient and ridiculously unnecessary, but it’s tricky with computers, which can be both.

I’m not one to usually think anything fun should be banned, but I don’t see a better solution to address blatant misuse of campus resources. And we’d all be better off in the end. This can be the start of something great.

Convenience is getting out of hand. We don’t have to come to campus to take some courses.

What’s next? Maybe some enterprising company will come up with something that spares us the trouble of spoon-feeding ourselves.

I know it’s hard to resist. We’re all so used to being catered to and being the most important person in the world.

And Web sites like you-know-what and Facebook certainly don’t help. I know I’m guilty of using these sites, and I’m not productive all day either, but I guess moderation is the key.

We can wean ourselves of useless time-wasters and unnecessary conveniences one step at a time before it’s too late. You’ll all be sorry when your kids use a cell phone to do advanced math homework, mow the lawn and cook dinner.

We need to put a stop to this sort of thing. If it wasn’t MySpace, it’d be something just as bad.

Universities can help by banning certain sites. I doubt the intent of putting computers in the USU was to let us see how many “pokes” or picture comments we get.

Allowing access to these sites in school will likely kick-start the horrible tailspin toward handless wiping and no-hands eating. We’ve been given too much.

And seriously, thousands of students hang out here daily. We should recognize the value of actually talking to each other in person and spending some actual time outside with people we share interests with.

Not everyone uses technology for evil, but these sites have obviously done just as much harm as good. And I guarantee it’s only going to get worse.

Technology in the consumer sector has provided many conveniences I’d rather not do without.

Progress isn’t bad, the problem is what we use it for.

It would be a monumental shame if The Information Age left us all clueless.

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