Jewish World Review May 19, 2000 / 14 Iyar, 5760
Bob Greene
The place to find life is
not a keyboard
http://www.jewishworldreview.com --
PERHAPS THE MOST SIGNIFICANT national news in the
recent days was a small item out of Fulton, Mo., that
you may have missed.
The administration of William Woods University in
Fulton, according to the news report, is offering
students a $5,000 tuition rebate it they accept a
difficult challenge and prove they are serious about
it.
The challenge is this:
Get off the Internet. Turn off their computers.
Tuition is $13,000; the $5,000 will be knocked off
if the students can demonstrate that they have, in
fact, shut down their computers. Not shut the
machines down completely -- but shut them down
during moments that matter.
Those moments, according to Lance Kramer, vice
president and dean of academic affairs, are
moments when the students could be doing things
that the college experience is really supposed to be
about. According to Kramer:
"After all the technically challenging things are
mastered, we were concerned we weren't
combining them with cultural understandings,
human sensitivities." According to the news report,
an accomplished harpist was brought to the
university to present a concert; only about a dozen
people showed up to watch and listen. The new
plan involves a point system, in which students are
given points for attending campus cultural events or
joining campus organizations; earn the points, earn
the tuition rebate.
It's an idea that may be scoffed at by some people
-- why should college students be compensated for
joining clubs or going to concerts and lectures, the
critics of the plan will argue -- but the thinking
behind it is sound and inventive. Someone at
William Woods University -- someone very smart
-- is paying close attention to what is happening to
our society. And that person has a clearer
understanding of the troubling aspects of our new
computer-centered world than do many analysts
who for years now have been saying that the
worldwide computer network is the very
embodiment of the future.
"You can go anywhere in the world" -- that is the
line we have heard over and over, as proponents of
the Internet society have exulted over the way we
are beginning to live. Sit at your keyboard, decide
which area of interest you are intrigued about today
-- then tap the keys, and you're there. Put a word
or a descriptive phrase into the search engine, and
you can be in Rome at 9 a.m., inside the New
York Yankees organization at 10 a.m., at a
museum in Paris at 11 a.m., deep in the workings
of a ball-bearing manufacturer at noon. You can go
anywhere; you can experience anything.
Except it's not true. It's the Big Lie -- that the
Internet can take you places. The Internet is an
amazing, even thrilling, research and
communications tool -- there is knowledge out
there for the taking, knowledge (both serious and
lightweight) that is more convenient and accessible
than anything ever imagined. The Internet is not
only valuable -- it will soon be irreplaceable.
But it doesn't take you anywhere. That's the lie,
that's the illusion. Every minute you are on the
Internet, you are confined to your chair in the room
where you and your computer are locked in this
cold new embrace. You are alone. Even when you
are sending e-mails and instant messages, you are
alone; even when you are looking at a screen filled
with information that fascinates you, you are alone.
It doesn't feel like it; it feels like you are traveling.
But when you turn your computer off -- often
surprised when you calculate just how long you've
been on -- you are still in the same place you were
sitting when the session began. You are still by
yourself.
And what they seem to be saying at William
Woods University is: There's a better way. Life
does not -- or should not -- consist of pecking at
keys and pretending to be somewhere enriching,
pretending to be speaking with people. Life is not
digital; life is not fiberoptically connected. Life is . .
.
Well, life is what it always has been. Life is out
there -- not out there in cyberspace, but really out
there, out the door, out of your room, out into the
world of people doing things and looking each
other in the eye and hearing each others' voices.
Life is warm; life is 98.6 degrees, give or take a
point. Life is not arrived at via a search engine,
unless the search is attached to your feet and your
heart. Life involves a commute -- you have to go
find it.
It's not on a screen. The people who run William
Woods University seem to be among the first to
understand that. Funny, that it should sound like a
revolutionary new concept: Life is not on a screen.
Life is out there where it's always
been.
JWR contributor Bob Greene is a novelist and columnist. Send your comments to him by clicking here.
05/18/00: A problem of suds but no duds
05/17/00: Are those lazy, hazy dot-com days fading?
05/16/00: The truest things in life require not a single word
05/15/00: 'Evidently he didn't like the way she dusted the house'
05/12/00: Why news executives are hoping this 'woman' is a hit
05/11/00: Ted Koppel, Hitler, Mellencamp . . . and words of love
05/10/00: Maybe it's time for the right people to hear our cheers
05/09/00: The lesson that they always learn late
05/05/00: 'Excuse me, but there seems to be something in my water'
05/05/00: When your first dream turns out to be your best dream
05/04/00: Even baseball couldn't make light of this superstition
05/03/00: The ringmaster who looks back from your mirror
05/02/00: There they go, just a-yappin' down the street . . .
05/01/00: You must remember this (Unless you don't)
04/24/00: Now that casino ads are allowed to tell the truth . . .
04/13/00: The man in the seat across the airplane aisle
04/11/00: A star is born, but do you know where it's @?
04/06/00: Through the eyes of Norman Rockwell
03/21/00: 10 good reasons to avoid making this list
03/21/00: 'I tell myself that they've gone on vacation'
03/21/00: Monday Night Football memories
03/02/00: This report card deserves an 'A' in every subject
02/29/00: What really happened on New Year's eve
02/23/00: Of paste pots, Denver sandwiches and finding Dr. Sam
02/17/00: What would you like to stay exactly the same?
02/04/00: Politics: When did the stagehands step onto the stage?
02/01/00: An awesome idea to make you sound better
01/26/00: Y3K already? We haven't yet recovered from Y2K
01/21/00: Watching the pot that always boils
01/19/00:The story behind the men on the museum steps
01/13/00: Here's to the students who never hear a cheer
01/11/00: The oh-so-sweet sound of modems in the morning
01/04/00: The person in your mirror just got wiser
12/31/99: A lesson -- and a memory -- to last a millennium
12/29/99: Racing the clock, even when it's running backwards
12/13/99: The right to bear coffee
12/08/99: From teen idol to ink-stained wretch: Can you Dig it?
12/02/99: Human 'search engines'
11/30/99: Here's looking at you -- now hand over the cash
11/23/99: Who'll say 'I'm sorry' to the other Decatur students?
11/18/99: "From bad things, good can come"
11/16/99: The man who didn't know the meaning of 'whatever'
11/12/99: Is this progress? We have made the weekend obsolete
11/09/99: Today he would probably be called Kyle Kramden
11/04/99: And you thought the IRS was heartless
11/02/99: When it's free, what will the real price be?
10/29/99: The tissue-thin decisions that define who we are
10/26/99: One way to cut road rage down to size
10/22/99: Asking all the right questions takes a special pitch
10/18/99: The signs are talking to you; Are you listening?
10/12/99: Even Capone would be disgusted
10/08/99: Don't ever look your neighborhood bear in the eye
10/06/99: Land of the free and marketplace of the brave
10/04/99: German warplanes in
American skies
09/30/99: While you fret, something is sneaking up on you
09/28/99: In these busy times, why not bring back a certain buzz?
09/24/99: The storms whose paths no one can track
09/21/99: Who's minding the store? Oh . . . never mind
09/17/99:Here's another place where you can't smoke
09/14/99: As certainly as `lovely Rita' follows `when I'm 64' . . .
09/09/99: Why is patience no longer a virtue?
09/07/99: Once upon a time, in an airport close to you . . .
09/03/99: The answers? They are right in front of us
09/01/99: Up the creek with a paddle--and cussing up a storm
08/30/99: $1 Million Question: How'd we get to be so stup-d?
08/27/99: Fun and games at Camp Umbilical Cord
08/25/99: How life has been changed by the woodpecker effect
08/23/99: If you don't like this story, blame the robot who wrote it
08/20/99: A four-letter word that has helped both Bob and Rhonda
08/18/99: They have picked the wrong country
08/16/99: From paperboy to stalker--how the news has changed
08/12/99: Why wasn't anyone watching his brothers?
08/10/99: Come to think of it, stars seldom are the retiring type
08/05/99: The national gaper's block is always jammed
07/29/99: 'Can you imagine the gift you gave me?'
07/27/99: A view to a kill -- but is this really necessary?
07/23/99: Some cream and sugar with your turbulence?
07/21/99: When your name is JFK jr., how do you choose to use it?
07/19/99: The real world is declared not real enough
07/15/99: The real victims of cruel and unusual punishment
07/13/99: A 21st Century idea for schools: log off and learn
07/09/99: Are life's sweetest mysteries still around the bend?
07/07/99: Of great minds, cream cheese and Freddy Cannon
07/02/99: The perfect spokesman for the American way
06/30/99: 'He's 9 years old . . . he trusts people'
06/28/99: A $581 million jackpot in the courthouse casino
06/25/99: A nighttime walk to a House that feels like a cage
06/23/99: At least give men credit for being more morose
06/18/99: On Father's Day, a few words about mothers
06/16/99: If work is a dance, how's
your partner doing?
06/14/99: Should a dictionary ever tell you to keep quiet?
06/10/99: A story of Sex, the SuperBowl and your wife
06/07/99: Take a guess where "California Sun" is from
06/03/99: Of summer days, summer nights and pebbles in a jar
06/01/99: Putting your money where their mouths are
05/27/99: Pressed between wooden covers, the summer of her life
05/25/99:The lingering song of a certain summer
05/24/99:We could all use a return to the Buddy system
05/20/99: Now, this is enough to make James Bond double-0 depressed
05/17/99: It's midnight -- do you know where your parents are?
05/13/99: And now even saying "thank you" creates a problem
05/11/99: The answer was standing at the front door
©1999, Tribune Media Services
|