The college campuses of the new millennium have seen more changes than any ten year period before. From an increasing amount of students and new technology, to older generations going back to get a degree, the campus is bustling with new activity and new programs on a yearly basis.
One change, however, is not so much seen as heard. When walking through the halls of a dorm 20, even 10, years ago, there were very few people on telephones. Now it is difficult to walk around campus without seeing several people on cell phones. What is more surprising than this is who students are talking to: their parents.
There are the old sayings- the baby bird has to leave the nest, let them stretch their wings and cut the chord – but now there is no chord to cut as only a cell phone tower remains and no form of scissors can hack that bad boy down.
“Helicopter parenting”…in students?
There are buzzwords for it; “helicopter parents” is the most popular, but it comes from the other end as well.
There are no two ways around it, students today talk to their parents far more than they did 10 to 20 years ago.
Lewis senior, Heidi Williquette, is from Green Bay, WI and talks to her parents on a regular basis and even in busy times goes home once a month.
“Lewis is very boring on the weekends, so I would just go home every weekend last Spring. This semester I am a little busier so I go home every three or four weeks. I talk to my family pretty often. I probably talk to them every other day if not every day. I miss them,” she said.
Even commuters are talking to their parents when they aren’t at home via cell phone.
“I talk to my parents all the time. I talk to them face to face in the morning and the night and on the phone all day long. I probably talk to them at least once every few hours.”
“[The way parents and students communicate] has changed drastically,” said Teresa Hannon, mental health counselor at the Center for Health and Counseling Services, college graduate and mother of college students.
“If I look back on my college time of my life, I went to a two year community college and then to University of Illinois. My parents didn’t know what classes I was taking, called me once in a blue moon. I lived in a house and we had a phone there, but I didn’t talk to them a whole lot. Pretty much we were all on our own, figured out our own finances and figured out our own everything,” said Hannon.
What causes it?
The overtime minutes on student cell phones because of calls to home are numerous.
“There is a lot of different causes [of homesickness and ‘helicopter parents’]; some is personality, some is birth order, some is gender, some is family structure,” said Hannon.
Often girls are stereotyped as talking to their parents more, which is something Williquette admits to. “I’m very ‘daddy’s girl,’” she said. “I know it was hard for them to drive away and leave me; I think they knew it was coming and just kind of dealt with it.”
Hannon also has experience with differences in gender coinciding with differences in involvement needs.
“I have three children – two [sons] and one daughter. I talked to my daughter more often, its part of [her] personality. My son never calls me, my daughter does,” said Hannon. “There are some gender differences, but that’s not always across the board.”
Though both helicopter kids and parents come from a wide variety of situations, there is one variable that has a major effect on the students ability to adjust away from home.
“The students that have had the most struggle with homesickness are students that probably did lean on their parents more in high school and grade school,” said Hannon. “The big question is, what was the relationship before they left? If they always were very connected to their parents, that sometimes determines how that’s going to happen in college.”
Social integration & parenting changes
Though influences from home contribute to a student’s ability to adjust, their social integration at school also has an impact.
“Some research shows when they don’t feel as connected socially, or don’t have friends that come here, they go home more to hang out with their friends because they can’t get connected here,” said Hannon.
Having a significant other back at home or at another campus can also contribute to the frequency of when a student goes home.
“If my boyfriend is home I would go home without a doubt; I would miss class to go see him,” said Williquette.
Of course, there is always the student who just prefers to go home. “I think there is always that set of students that are just more homebodies,” said Hannon.
Part of the difference between this generation and the generations prior is that parenting methods have changed. “We are more intense in this society. Part of that is the ability to just connect,” said Hannon. “If I have a question for someone, I can just pick up the phone and leave a voicemail on their cell phone; you couldn’t do that even ten years ago. We are more connected because of the ability to connect – the downside of that is are we too connected?”
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Cocooning behind the computer screen
Carlo
In our last issue, The Flyer ran the first part of an in-depth piece on the use of social networking. Between sites like Facebook, Twitter and the use of text messaging, how does Lewis fit into the bigger picture?
Quantity over quality
In August 2009, the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Westminster, Vincent Nichols, stated that these social networking sites have detrimental side effects on their users causing them to have short, “transient relationships,” and that they stress the importance of quantity of friendship over quality.
In fact, 49 percent of Lewis students surveyed said that they have at least 200 friends or more in their profiles.
However, 62 percent said that they actually know “100 to 150,” or virtually all of the friends that they have online, and that 25 percent of those surveyed said that they actually come in contact with “20 to 30” people on their friends list on a weekly basis.
Dr. Thomas Brignall, associate professor of sociology, echoes Nichols’ statement and said that these numbers can become negative, especially with how society defines a friendship now.
“I think we define friends now as being somebody who’s on [their] Facebook page. If that’s a friendship, then I guess [we can maintain friendships online],” said Brignall. “But I think that we are social creatures and we need human touch. So I think it depends on what level you want it at. If you want to just keep connected so you only hear from them once a month or three times a month, okay fine.”
Hooked on ‘tronics?
Overall, something can be said about the way many young adults interact online, and society’s dependence on technology to do so.
Without computers and the Internet, interacting on social networking Web sites would not be possible, and with the advent of devices like the iPhone and Blackberry, accessing these Web sites have become much easier.
But for Brignall, this dependence on technology is something other than just about the need to access these social networking Web sites.
“We really don’t rely on [technology]. We have come to, what I think, is a capitalist consumption thing,” said Brignall. “In other words, if people sincerely put their phones away for a week […] and decided to talk to people normally, they probably would find that their life would be frustrating, and at other times enriching.”
With devices like the iPhone, staying connected to these networks an individual establishes online is easy, but Brignall believes in the adage that “distance” can actually strengthen a relationship.
“I think there’s this idea that we have to constantly be connected. But, connected to what? Most of the students I talk to don’t have deep conversations […] Sometimes anticipation is the greatest thing in any relationship,” said Brignall.
“Social cocooning”
But with the frequent use of these devices to access these social networking Web sites, the term “social cocooning” has been established, in which people would rather use these sites as a “dominant primary,” as Brignall puts it, rather than just a tool for communication.
Brignall explains that this phenomena goes back to the fears of individuals as, not only the world and society continuing to change, but their own personal surroundings as well.
Young adults make the transition from high school to college where their schedule and friends change, but making the transition, according to Brignall is key to beat this “social cocooning.”
“If you never make the transition, and always rely on the crutch [of using social networking Web sites], then you’re socially hurting yourself because then you’re going to have to make that transition [eventually],” said Brignall.
What will emerge?
So where will society be at the end of this “cocoon?” Will we emerge as a society strictly communicating online?
Brignall believes that “for better or worse,” society is already living life online, but also believes that something else better will come somewhere along the way.
“I have a suspicion that there will be something else that will grab their attention within 10 years. But I am concerned that since it’s part of their social characteristic, and when they graduate from high school or college, that they’re still on there,” said Brignall.
“I think as soon as there is a streaming video or streaming avatars, where you’re behaving and some avatar is doing the action for you, that will crush this and that’s not far away,” he added.
As some young adults continue to use social networking Web sites as means to communicate, their overall world continues to flourish.
Facebook, Twitter and text messaging, and the technology and devices available to easily access them, work as a cycle providing users with quick updates enabling people to “stay connected” as Brignall puts it.
But as some continue to “coccoon,” and that cycle keeps going, Brignall concludes that these sites work better as a tool for communication rather than a primary, and have an appropriate “time and place.”
“It’s making people want short sound bites and lacking attention […] Twitter is great, but I don’t think anything deep [comes from it],” said Brignall. “I certainly wouldn’t want to have a marriage counseling on Twitter.”
Catherine Cryder-Crump, Staff Reporter
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