Sex and tech

How many of you reading this sentence are listening to an iPod? \nI thought so. Here’s a little advice. Pull the plugs out of your ears, turn to the person sitting next to you and start talking about anything. Movies, books, your professor’s comb over … literally anything.\nThe technology bug that is infecting the world is quite pronounced on campus. Students long ago stopped communicating with each other prior to class or on sidewalks. This is old news, and, quite frankly, students are probably tired of hearing about it.\nTo experts who claim that technology leads to isolation in students, young people of the world respond by turning up their music and squinting harder at their laptops. Simple identification of the problem is having little effect.\nA little agitating from their peers seems equally ineffective. For example, a 2006 protest by a student organization called Students Opposing Silence at Western Kentucky University, in which SOS encouraged students to take off the headphones and talk to a friend, went mostly unnoticed both on the university’s campus and the nation. In June of the same year a study conducted by the Ridgewood, N.J.-based Student Monitor found iPods are more popular than beer. That’s quite an astonishing fact considering beer has existed for roughly 6,000 more years than the iPod. Talk about out with the old and in with the new.\nMore drastic measures must be taken to convince students to lose the headphones and close their laptops. \nWe must strike fear into them, threatening one of their most prized pastimes. Luckily, the virtual universe known as Second Life has provided just that opportunity.\nSecond Life, for those of you under a rock, is a virtual world in which users create avatars, or virtual people, and interact with other users. There are currently more than nine million users who shop, talk and interact in a total virtual world. Does it sound kind of cool at first mention? Wait for the other shoe to drop.\nAnother popular Second Life activity is the act of sex. Are you ready to take out your headphones yet? No? Let me explain.\nTechnology, starting with the invention of the Internet, has increasingly isolated students – so much they are able to replace real sex with virtual. Now, I’m no expert, but I’m betting that if there is one thing that is more popular among undergraduates than beer and iPods combined, it’s sex. But technology has found a way around the physical act. Scared enough to turn off that laptop yet?\nThe continuation of one of the most cherished activities at college depends on you listening to the advice mentioned above. Take off your headphones and close your laptops. See that handsome guy sitting across from you?\nHi. I’m Jake.