E-mail is for old people

According to this article, traditional-age college students have all but abandoned campus e-email for instant messaging and text messaging leaving college officials wondering how to reach them. Though many students say they still check their e-mail accounts, others complain that campus email is less than user-friendly. They also say they consider official messages for the college little more than Spam. College and universities have responded by creating MySpace and Facebook accounts. They are also resorting to podcasts, RSS feeds and Web video clips to keep students informed.

As a community college advisor, I can see the value of using new technologies to reach students. I didn't feel that way at first, but I must agree it is important to keep up with technology or risk losing students. At my institution we have had similar conversations about offering new student orientation and informational workshops via podcast and vodcast. We have also discussed a Facebook page. There is no one correct answer, but it is reasonable to communicate as widely as possible given the urgency of the announcement.

Carnevale, D. (2006, October 6). E-mail is for old people, The Chronicle of Higher Education, p. A27-29.

Data on the elderly, marketed to thieves

Just as children are vulnerable to predators on the Internet, the elderly are often targeted on-line. The difference is that children don’t have fat retirement accounts for thieves to plunder. Internet scams have been on the rise since 2003 and much of the blame can be traced to the selling of lists.

InfoUSA sells lists of names of senior citizen to fraudulent telemarketers. Banks, such as Wachovia, have allowed criminals to withdraw money from the accounts of elderly victims. And Wachovia is not the only bank involved in processing unsigned, fraudulent checks. However, other banks have been more cooperative with authorities when confronted with evidence of scams.

Just in case you were beginning to feel sorry for Wall Street bankers, read this article. It is clear from the mortgage meltdown that banks are no longer the conservative institutions they once were and it is clear that from the article banks are no longer interested in protecting the life savings of average clients. I am one hoping that this banking free-for-all will cease with the Obama administration.

Five things we need to know about technological change

Neil Postman writes about the social consequences of technology on our lives. He borrows from the greatest thinkers and writers of Western culture to support five ideas in a speech he delivered in 1998. His first idea is that “all technological change is a trade-off" or a Faustian bargain, if you will. There is a price to be paid for every new technological advance. Ask not, Postman cautions, what will this new technology do, but what will it undo? What will we lose as a result and is it worth it?

Postman goes on to make four more related observations about technological change and its affects on mankind weaving in historical references to support his well-taken points.This reflective article is especially interesting in light of the economic crisis of 2008. Postman seems to have predicted the current Wall Street mess. He says explicitly that capitalists need to be watched carefully and disciplined when they get too greedy. So-called conservatives “talk of family, marriage, piety and honor but if allowed to exploit new technology to its fullest economic potential, they may undo the institutions that make such ideas possible.” (p.6) Wow—Postman’s observations seem particularly astute ten years after he made this speech to a group of technology professionals.