Nowadays, with texting and social media making it easy to communicate with anyone instantly around the world, I was wondering how that affects college students with their transition to living away from home for the first time. You can make phone calls and talk for an hour to talk them off the ledge after they get their first C for the first time on a paper without having to worry about long distance charges on a mobile phone. It’s easy to exchange a quick photo of the family dog as a good luck text when they’re facing a brutal exam in a class they hate. And, it’s easy for a student to stay in touch with their high school friends.
But, of course, this could work the other way. It might make it harder to start the adjustment process and start finding themselves. When all you’ve got are letters and long distance phone calls, you’ll eventually have to decide that it’s time to meet people. Or, be like my sophomore year roommate who was a good friend in high school one year behind me. He quit after the first 6 weeks of college because he refused to grow up and adjust to adult life.
I’m in the middle here. I was in college from 98-02. Early enough to start seeing cell phones, but long before they were at all common and texting was very rare.
My daughter is only in 7th grade, but is in constant contact with everyone via her cellphone.
I’d be inclined to guess that kids and parents that stay better connected now, would have done it just as well back then. That is, if a student/parent talk/skype/text at least once a day now, that same couple would have found a way to communicate then as well. A phone call two or three times a week, written letters, visiting more often etc.
On the flip side, the kids that took off and hardly ever saw or spoke to their family until the next holiday are likely the same ones that text back one word answers and let the calls go to voicemail.
That’s my guess anyway. Cell phones might exaggerate how close a child and parent are, but I don’t think, at least in general, that they’d change it.
I’m a professor, not a parent, but no, I don’t think it has. If anything, it seems to make it harder for students to adjust and integrate into campus life, both because they’re still anchored to their family back home, and because it’s simply harder to make new friends when you and your peers are all spending more time on your phones and less time interacting face to face. It’s not a huge difference compared to ten years ago, but it’s noticeable.
I think it has reduced homesickness for our daughter. We typically Skype once or twice a week, and the occasional text. When things are more stressful we may be in touch a little more. She has a number of friends she spends time with at school, as well as several social clubs and organizations. Friends of our with kids of the same cohort all extol the benefits of being able to keep in touch, and those that have had kids flame-out early all have had some other underlying issue (access to tech was not the issue).
She is pretty gregarious to begin with, so I think it may depend on the individual student’s conditioning prior to going away to school. Kids that spend hours playing video games with their buddies are going to have a hard time integrating with a school and campus social life no matter if it is at high school or college. Whereas kids who have a healthy social life (real and virtual) should adapt and expand their independence even more away from home.
The lil’wrekker has not had much trouble adjusting to life away from home. In fact, she has thrived. She is in contact with me daily, via texts and calls. It’s kinda like the adjustment was harder for me. I pushed my little baby bird out of the nest and she flies. Go figure.
I think some of each. Yes, students retain stronger emotional connections with and support from their families when they stay in closer touch, which can have psychological benefits. But sticking closer to the family nest can make it more difficult for the fledglings to explore and interact as adults.
interesting question. One could rephrase it for those living overseas as well.
I love that my eldest talks to her little sister all the time as it is effectively free. But as Fretful P points out, it reduces the forcing function of it’s just too damn expensive and inconvenient to keep in close touch. Bit of both is my experience.
Definitely. When our daughter was living in Germany and then in Hong Kong we talked to her more often than I talked to my parents 200 miles away.
I was never homesick, and neither were our kids. But I think one factor was that our younger daughter, more in the Facebook generation, could keep in touch with her high school friends when she was off in college. Not something practical for me.
This was the case for my son. He stayed in his room all the time and talked online with his friends from high school. He realized he wasn’t happy and came back home after two quarters and enrolled at the local state school.
People get homesick? I couldn’t wait to get away, live on my own and meet new people/make new friends. Once I got there, it was better than I’d hoped.
I can see how what **Fretful Porpentine **is saying could happen; if you’re not cut off from your old social circle, there’s not as much drive for everyone to make new ones.
Homesickness is a wide encompassing term. For me, as a band geek, I had a group of friends from the first few days of 9th grade until graduation. I spent probably 95% of weekends with either the three friends I was closest with or at a party with a larger group.
So, college was an adjustment for me. My best friend wasn’t academically able to go to a 4 year school, he went to a community college. My other two close friends were a year behind.
As I mentioned above, I moved in with a close friend as a sophomore as he was starting his freshman year. I honestly don’t know what all caused him to freak out, but once he left to go back home, I knew it was definitely time to cut those high school ties and start meeting people seriously at college. No more eating lunch with a textbook or newspaper. Best decision I ever made.
As I’ve mentioned in some of the mobile phone threads, I’m a very heavy texter and extremely active on social media. I think it’s fascinating to see how modern technology may have made the high school to college adjust easier or more difficult for students of today.