Disconnected.

Yesterday I was over at my alma mater for work. Our task was to interact and interview as many current students as possible in the name of our business. We’re working to develop the latest and greatest technological and media tools and are continually evolving our publishing solutions, etc. etc. Blah, blah schpeel, blah.

Why I was there is not exactly my point.

What I couldn’t help but marvel at, as I wandered around the student union yesterday, was just how long it has been since I was an undergraduate student myself. I mean, we’re past the ten year mark, my friends. At times it feels like I could be a co-ed again in a heartbeat, that nothing more than a week has passed since I turned in my final paper as a class of 2001 senior. While I spoke with students I heard and saw myself echoed in so many of their replies. I watched them studying in the courtyard, saw them giggling with friends over lunch in the union, and watched them scurrying to classes or the library. While so very much has changed since I first set foot on Boston University’s campus way back in the fall of 1997 so much hasn’t. There are still life lessons to learn at school, educations to pursue. There are clubs to join and organizations to get involved with and there are - for every incoming freshman - four glorious years ahead to make totally your own.

But I digress.

What has changed – notably so – is the amount of technology on campus. When I moved into my dorm 14(!) years ago it was with a massive desktop computer, one that we hooked up to the Ethernet. My BU email address was my very first email account in my life; I had only been on “the world wide web” a handful of times.

Now! Laptops and iPods and smart phones and wireless access and Facebook abounds! I don’t think I passed a single student that didn’t have at least one technological device going; most had several working at the same time. And while I’m doing my best to keep up in this tech-crazed world (I’ve had a blog going for over six years – long before anyone ever mentioned profit and blog in the same sentence!) there comes a time when I stop and thank my lucky stars that I didn’t go to school when any of this three-ringed tech circus existed.

I think perhaps I’m just not cut out for this current tech wave. I have a Facebook account, but to be completely honest, the motivating factor in that sign up was because a boy I had a crush on was on there. I never partook in MySpace or Friendster. I created a Twitter account earlier this summer and do you know how many times I’ve logged on since? Zero. Heck, I even have a smart phone. But do you know what I hate doing on that smart phone? “Smart” things. I rarely check my email on it; I have only a handful of apps. In fact, I actually still use email as my primary form of communication between most of my friends – both near and far. I’m told, by the youth of today, that email is passé. But I like my email! I can control when I check it, when I reply to it. I feel I am simply not cut out for this current “always connected, always available” vibe that is sweeping the country. The older I get the more I enjoy disconnecting at the end of the day. Call me crazy, but I don’t want the world to know I’ve “checked in” at such and such restaurant down the street. Gchat makes me hyper-ventilate, the idea of Google reader makes me nervous, and we all know how I feel about the pesky eBook.

A few days ago Facebook changed its format and layout again. Zuckerberg doesn’t care whether people hate the new design or not because frankly I think he feels he’s too big to fail. (Ahem. Dear Mark, Blockbuster thought the same thing.) I won’t moan and groan too much about the new layout here, except to say I find it annoying and have since found myself logging on to Facebook less and less over the past week. This might not be a bad thing. The more I can disconnect these days, the happier I am. Plus, it just gives me more time to pick up an actual book.

And yell at those kids to stay off my lawn of course.