What if We Are Wasting Life Away Online?

No, I'm not talking about the numerous stories about my travels throughout Europe or even stories about hot girls (although those stories were quite interesting; I'll keep those for another column).

More interesting was the fact that my friends and I had the ability to use this technology to communicate when we were hundreds of miles away from one another. Realize this, folks: our generation is part of the technological revolution. We spend hours on Instant Messenger and writing e-mails.

I know, so what? Our lives would be so much more boring without such inventions, but many would argue, more productive. Think about how much different college would be had we come here 10 years ago.

No wasted hours on IM, no e-mailing professors in the middle of the night to ask them a question about a test you didn't study for, no https://blackboard.unc.edu for the professors to use as an excuse not to print out their own material. Heck, I don't even think there was cable in dorm rooms at UNC 10 years ago.

That would be unacceptable to my indolent roommate from last year, who spent most of his time watching Pauly Shore movies on USA and perusing Web sites for God knows what.

So the question is, are these technological advancements unnecessary hindrances or welcome additions to our daily lives? On the one hand, IM and e-mail enable us to have contact with our professors and download material from Web sites (for class, uh, just for class).

However, it seems as though we have forgotten the value of personal contact. We talk for countless hours on IM to people who live right down the hall. Essentially we are dissing our friends for the sake of convenience.

We rarely even pick up the phone and call anymore. It seems as though instead of asking for digits, now we do as some girl in Lenoir Hall did the other day by asking her friend to hit her up at her screen name when she got home. Huh? How about actually going to our professors' office hours and developing a valuable relationship with those people who control our grades?

Of course there are two sides to all arguments. The argument I use to justify my endless hours on the computer is that we would not be communicating at all with these professors or friends if it weren't for the technology that we now have.

In fact, I would argue that I have become closer to my friends and have been more willing to communicate with my professors.

Through IM and e-mails, I have definitely learned a lot about those people that are close to me here, and they have certainly learned more than they ever would have about me. I'm a writer, and hence I communicate better through sending e-mails.

I don't believe that there is anything inherently wrong with this unless it completely overtakes our lives and our identity becomes defined by some clever set of letters that we combine to make an IM name. It is probably better that we have such a system to be able to communicate in the first place.

I mean, come on, would I really be talking to those friends from high school in northern Virginia anymore if it weren't for IM?

Would I really get a chance to talk to my best friend here at 2 a.m. on a weekday morning instead of going over class material that was pertinent to the next day? (We have deeper conversations than I have in some of my classes anyway).

It is easy to say yes, we would be more productive in daily activities without such things as IM or extraneous e-mails, but I think it is inevitable that we would waste time in other ways if it were not for such inventions. However, it may be good to abstain from excessive computer use, as my roommate did last week.

Actually, forget it, I'm sure none of you are going to follow suit, so any hotties that want to e-mail me with their screen name, feel free.

And so the cycle continues.

Kenneth Chandler was serious about that last paragraph. Send screen names to kchandle@email.unc.edu.