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Harrisburg University Bans Social Networking for Week-Long Experiment

by Amar Toor on September 13, 2010 at 09:18 AM

Harrisburg Social Media BlackoutThe only blackouts most college students experience typically involve homemade absinthe and late night stomach pumps. This week, however, students at one university in Pennsylvania will have to endure an entirely different -- and perhaps more terrifying -- brand of blackout: a digital one.

As of today, access to all social networking sites and instant messaging programs will be blocked across Harrisburg University of Science and Technology's network, as part of a week-long experiment designed to make today's youth consider an existence without social networking (i.e., life as we knew it before 2004). When the campus-wide blackout finally comes to a glorious close, all students will have to hand in invariably maudlin essays about their experience without social networking. "Often there are behaviors, habits, ways we use technology that we may ourselves not even be able to articulate because we're not aware of them," experiment leader and new-least-popular-provost-on-campus Eric Darr told NPR.

Student reaction to the ban has been mixed thus far, with some welcoming the idea and others shuddering at the thought of a Facebook-less campus. "My biggest problem is not being able to find people, because I use Facebook and Twitter to find people at school, to see where they're at," student Ashley Harris says. Fellow student Gio Acosta, on the other hand, thinks the blackout might do him some good. "I had my phone set to receive Facebook, texts, tweets -- and ring -- so I had to turn that off between 3 and 6 in the morning so I can actually sleep during that time," Acosta tells NPR. "If you don't set the limits, it's a 24-hour thing."

Social media critic Jaron Lanier, meanwhile, thinks Harrisburg University's students would be better served if the experiment required them to donate a penny to charity every time they use social networking sites. If online socializing were "more conscious and more considered," Lanier argues, kids would be more acutely "aware of how much they were doing."

Still, Lanier remains optimistic that this generation of Facebook addicts will one day become aware of their foolish behavior, and defiantly declare, "'No, we are individuals, we invent ourselves, we're not going to have some third-party advertising business define us. We invent our own taste, and furthermore, we decide what friendship means.'" Sounds like a stirring scenario, but -- before he entertains thoughts of a global uprising -- Lanier should probably wait and see if Harrisburg's student body can survive one Facebook-less week without resorting to cannibalism.

Tags: ban, blackout, college, facebook, HarrisburgUniversity, InstantMessaging, socialnetworking, top, twitter, web

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