BY PROFESSOR JACK MANDEL, M.B.A
Nassau Community College
I don’t understand what’s going on with
college students today. It’s obvious
they’ve changed a lot since I started
teaching at Nassau Community College
in 1978. There is less and less verbal
and face-to-face communication with
one another! People always look down,
never ahead, and do not smile as much.
But why?
In a word… cellphones!
You see, although students stand in a
hallway in close proximity to each other
(probably inches away), there is no facial
or communicative recognition of each
other. They are probably in the same class
waiting for it to begin, but they would never
know it.
I call it being in a “personal time zone
warp.” And unfortunately, this is what has
become the norm, not only in colleges,
but in the workplace, the playground, the
a public pay phone and the privacy it gave
an individual. Today, if you talk on your
cell, YOUR business is now MY business.
No one seems to care about privacy.
And I don’t seem to get it. It’s almost like
an addiction. Students in high schools and
college need to be told to put their mobile
devices away, over and over again and
again.
And don’t think it is totally appropriate
to text a “thank you” after a job interview.
NO, NO, NO. A phone call or a written
(huh?) letter is far more meaningful and
shows greater thought and interest!
It’s almost like the SPOKEN word has lost
its place in society. I have to laugh when I
think back to my early days of teaching at
Nassau Community College (early ‘80s).
Everyone talked and a class would be told
to “calm down” so I could take attendance.
Today, I walk into TOTAL SILENCE as each
I may be “old-school” but…
library, in a restaurant and at the mall --
EVERYWHERE!
Look, we will never go back to the days
of rotary phones. In fact, landlines may
become extinct in another decade or two.
Only those of us 40 and over can appreciate
student is “in his or her personal time zone
warp.” I surmise this is the end-product of
a high-tech society (sic). Readers, what do
you think?
HAVE A GREAT 2018 SEMESTER! And
please, “speak up a little more!”-lol!
Jack K. Mandel is celebrating his 40th year as a
professor of marketing at Nassau Community College
in Garden City, New York. He is a recipient of the
prestigious Outstanding Teacher Award conferred by
the NYS Association of Two-Year Colleges.
QNS.COM
8 SPRING 2018