High Speed Net Access Defining College Life

peter303 writes "Todays LA Times has an article on how high speed InterNet access (defined as 10 Mbit ethernet in your dormroom or 100+ times T-1/ISDN/fast modem) is revolutionizing college life: such things as routine streaming video and free long distance phone calls. It is creating a generation of "speed-junkies" that is affecting college admissions, employment and housing decisions, and propelling consumer demand for high bandwidth pipes. " Bandwidth convinced me to move on campus. The lack of bandwidth nearly kept me there (despite paying like 4x as much as I did simply renting a house nearby). Its very true.

Comments

Other implications

[generic-man]

Just think about what will happen when broadband access is as widespread in the "real world" as it is in corporate/educational America. Free, high-quality phone calls and videoconferencing. Lightning-fast transfer speeds. Industries such as the long-distance telecom industry are already changing to meet this demand. Notice how phone rates are trending towards a flat rate per month plus nominal charges for calls.

Of course, free stuff isn't always "free" -- there are ads, and antiprivacy crap like monitoring your web usage. I wouldn't be surprised to see legislation about that in the next three years.

Re:high speed reclusivity

[Kintanon]

studies are beginning to point towards a relationship between time spent on the 'net and a loss of mental or physical well being ... from experience, I can attest that high speed access in a college environment is like a drug -- you've got your gamers, your chatters, your pr0nners, etc. etc. etc. and the newfound freedom of college seems to encourage abuse of this access ... is society as a whole headed for trouble, or, worst case scenario, a disaster, when the day comes that people prefer electronic contact over personal/physical ... ?


Many of us despise day to day contact with most of humanity in any case. I recently closed my brick and morter bank account because I can't stand dealing with the tellers. I hate having to talk to people on the phone if I don't know them already, and I have no desire for personal contact with random strangers. I've met quite a lot of friends on the net who I later met (two of whom now live with me and my GF in our new house) and liked. I find it easier to communicate through this medium than through the telephone, I can communicate adequately in person but I don't prefer it. And yet I have a fairly healthy social life, it's just that I have time to focus on doing ONLY what I want to do and with whom I want to do it. I don't have to deal with the stupidity of clerks or the inane questions asked by losers I run into on the street. The few mass social contacts I have are at things like conventions or M:TG tournaments where I know the people all have at least one interest in common with me.
I really don't think there is anything wrong with preferring electronic contact to personal/physical....

Kintanon

Calling entrepreneurs!

[Tau Zero]

Heck of an opportunity for an apartment developer, isn't it?
--

Re:high speed reclusivity

[jd]

Studies show what they want to show. Psychologists are notorious for experiments with no control group, no variable checks, and very poor random selection. As a result, studies of that kind are invariably influenced more by who's footing the bill than by the people being studied.

I agree that the Internet can be used addictively, but so can anything. There are probably as many, if not more, tiddly-wink addicts and canasta addicts as there are Internet addicts, on a global scale.

The world is heading for no more "trouble" now than it was when it discovered alchohol, or those curiously coloured mushrooms. College has always been a hotbed of alchoholism, drug-abuse, sex addiction, eating disorders, adrenalin addiction, etc. The death-toll from just the ones I've listed is probably higher than the total number of dorm terminals installed in the entire US.

Nor does access to a terminal, or even excessive use, necessarily mean anything. Plenty of students drink like fish (though the fish would have to be fairly large), without any serious long-term psychological or physical harm. The same goes for computer-use. It's entirely possible to sit in front of a computer 20 hours a day, every day, for months on end, and not suffer any more ill-effects than perhaps a mild migrane and bags under the eyes.

I'd say that everyone has to look at their own experience, decide if the short-term benefits are worth the long-term costs, and experiment to see if they can stop. If they -can- stop, when they choose, with no impact, then there's no addiction. If they can't, especially if the benefits are increasingly not worth it, then there's a serious problem.

New Tech Reclusivity - blast from the past

[jabber]

You know what, I just don't know about that Christopher fellow.

He used to spend time with us here in the market place, but ever since Guttenberg invented printed books, he's become a recluse.

He just sits there, burning perfectly good candles at night, reading and mumbling about 'feeding his head'.

You know, I don't think he's even bothered to plow his field this season. Surely, these books are the work of the devil.

Re:I'll be impressed

[jd]

"Everyone" (a distant cousin of "Anyone", who is the long-lost aunt of "Someone") uses ICQ exclusively, of course.

Everyone would not be caught dead using multicasting to watch the Shuttle launches. In fact, Everyone hasn't even -heard- of multicasting, videocasting, audiocasting, whiteboards, shared text editors or shared polls.

Everyone uses Windows, rather than X, so doesn't even -have- to think about display redirects, especially when playing XTank.

Everyone has their own printer, so doesn't have to send those 100-page end-of-semester reports to the laserjet down the hall, which include large, high-res graphics.

Everyone uses floppies, so doesn't need Samba, CODA, NFS, or any other such stuff.

Everyone restricts FTPs to 4K UUencoded BASIC programs for saying "Hello World". Everyone doesn't understand who would download 100 megabytes of DB/2, or the sources for X11R6.4. Large downloads are for prawnography, surely, so downloading industrial-strength software just doesn't make any sense. PGCC 2.95.3, the Linux kernel, Kerberos, Emacs, amateur astronomy software such as AIPS, geography systems... Who could possibly want any of these? They're... USEFUL! Especially in relevent classes. Why would anyone wany something they could -learn- with, when ICQ is so much better!

Everyone would never dream of running a Student Society web server or FTP server. In fact, Everyone hates student activities, as they take him away from ICQ. Actually contributing something to student life is beyone Everyone. After all, Everyone is out for himself.

Everyone would never think of hooking up the dorm phone system to the computer, to supply the campus with zero-cost phone calls. That's so... ...unselfish!

"Everyone", in my books, is a pathetic, weazeling moron, and any person who thinks at waist-height and believes ICQ is the best thing ever, is an unenviable toad. Computers do more than play at teletype for real-life cowards who daren't just go to the next room and say what they have to say to the person.