There I was, standing face-to-face with Julia Stiles. She was wearing a beautiful outfit that my words cannot even attempt to describe. Those luscious lips of hers were about to open and out of her mouth … BUUUUUZZZZZZZZ. That was my alarm clock, blaring at 6 am. What? Did you really think that I, a dual EE/CSE major at RPI, would ever in life get a chance like that with Julia Stiles? But anyway, that’s just a nice start to a normal day. After preparing for the day—you know the routine: check my e-mail, shower (stop picturing me naked), check my e-mail again, and see who is up by talking on AIM—I decide to head off for a hearty Commons breakfast.
While I was sitting there, staring into my half eaten bowl of cereal, trying to remember all of my dream, I notice ripples forming in my bowl of milk, and my chair began to shake. Was I dreaming again and was I suddenly in Jurassic Park? Did the genetic engineering department finally make a gigantic albino squirrel? Then I heard a voice, "H to the izzo ..." That’s right. I turn around and see someone sitting at the table next to me blasting music from his laptop.
At RPI we are a technologically advanced student body. But the question of the matter is, do we really need to have this technology with us everywhere we go?
Everything has its own time and place. Seeing that we are at RPI, I know what you all are thinking right now, "You mean I can’t use my nifty gadgets all the time?" That is exactly right. So let’s go through some good and bad ways to use those "nifty gadgets" of ours: blasting music from your laptop in your room at 3 pm, good thing; blasting music from you laptop in your room at 3 am, bad thing; leaving your cell phone on vibrate during a COCO lecture to bring some enjoyment to the class, good thing; having your cell phone start ringing "Beethoven’s Fifth" during a COCO lecture waking up people trying to sleep, bad thing; using headphones and a Discman to listen to music on the way to class, good thing; playing music through your laptop speakers to listen to music on the way to class, bad thing. I think you’re getting the gist of things.
Don’t get me wrong. It is ok to carry your laptop with you, and always to have a cell phone on you. I mean, the way I found out about the September 11 terrorist attacks was through a friend’s cell phone. His mother called him in the middle of our LITEC lab. He did, however, have the cell phone on vibrate, and left the classroom to answer the phone. It seems to me that in this age of ever-advancing technology, we are losing some social courtesy. Do we really want to be known as the generation where we were too involved in "nifty gadgets" to be courteous to others?
