Don't text message away your future

Jake Goldbas

Staff Columnist

Published: Thursday, March 12, 2009

Updated: Thursday, March 12, 2009

Jake Goldbas

Every time someone texts in class they are inevitably next to me. When this happens, whether we are friends, lovers, nemeses or simple seat neighbors, I want to punch them in the face. Now I want to be liked -- this is the reason why I don't want to say anything to them in class.

Professors usually do not mind such staggering idiocy because calling these students out is a distraction in itself. One time somebody was texting a friend (in one of my classes, prompting the professor to call the student out by name, berated the person for wasting class time and implying text messaging might explain why the person's grades were suffering. She was hit so hard, I felt like crying.

But by stopping class, the texting-terrorists win. Okay, they don't win, because they look like an idiot, but it's an even bigger distraction to the class. And the attempt to make an example of this student just backfired.

There's something so slap-in-the-face about texting. These people don't want to leave class to do it, which means it's not really important in the first place. But by texting your friends in the middle of your supposedly larger and more worthwhile class, these people are making a judgment call about the class. They're saying that the class is bad enough to text in.

If you were driving a car with someone, and they were texting, you would tell them to stop because your life is on the line. When our lifelong dreams and careers are at stake, how is that so different?

If it were worthwhile conversation, it would be done outside of class. It would probably be a phone conversation -- can you imagine getting, "ur G-ma died" via text? No, it's more like, "howzit goin boo?" I wish I could say to these people, "Tell your boo to shut up." The judgment these people are making is even more insidious, however.

Remember in middle school when that one spoiled kid played Gameboy in class? He was saying that the games were a better use of his time. It's something sick with the spirit when we unconsciously go for first level pleasures without thought or mindfulness. It's something worse when we're doing that in a place (college) where we are supposed to work toward a bigger future by sacrificing small pleasures.

Texting, just like the spoiled kid playing Gameboy, also serves as a sort of escapism that is an illusion. It's completely opposite from what college is supposed to be. Worse, it distracts me just enough to notice them fidget with their cell phone and twitch with paranoia at their instructor. They have paid thousands of dollars for college instructors to act like a middle school teacher, which the professors probably won't do -- the students already look like idiots, and they don't need professors' help.

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