Tangled in an endless web of distractions Colleges worry about always-plugged-in students
By Tracy Jan Globe Staff / April 24, 2011
CAMBRIDGE - It was supposed to be a quick diversion, Katie Inman told herself last week as she flipped open her laptop. She had two tests to study for, three problem sets due, a paper to revise. But within minutes, the MIT sophomore was drawn into the depths of the Internet, her work shunted aside.
"I had just closed Facebook, but then I reopened it. It's horrible,'' said Inman, a mechanical engineering major. "I would type a sentence for my paper, and then get back on Facebook.''
Desperate for productivity, Inman did something many of her classmates at one of the most wired campuses would find unfathomable: She installed a program that blocks certain websites for up to 24 hours. No social networking. No e-mail. No aimless surfing.
While Inman took matters into her own hands, some MIT professors are urging college leaders across the country to free students from their tether to technology. Over the past decade, schools raced to connect students to the Internet - in dorms, classrooms, even under the old oak tree. But now, what once would have been considered heresy is an active point of discussion: pulling the virtual plug to encourage students to pay more attention in class and become more adept at real-life social networking.
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