The internet has ruined the learning ethic

I'm surrounded by pop culture references. I don't mean online - the internet is the greatest hive of scum and villainy this side of Mos Eisley, and it's to be expected that they churn out idiocy and brilliance. I mean in real life - I find myself surrounded by ditzy girls, idiot guys, and intelligent people of both sexes, all of whom seem to be embracing the internet culture.

There are people who draw chalk signs on the pavement on the way to lectures, where they're going to be seen - sometimes it's just a small philosophical message. Sometimes it's a religious quotation, which gets some atheists hot under the collar. And sometimes, like last week, it was ponies. I'm not even kidding - we had characters from My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic on the pavement.

It was glorious.

I think it was Fluttershy and Princess Luna. I have no idea why they were there, but they were adorable, and they just surprised the hell out of me. I'm not a Brony, or at least not a hardcore one, but I know who they are. I like the idea of Doctor Whooves, but that's just my Who nerd finding outlet, combined with David Tennant's Doctor living on as a confused but determined time travelling pony. What isn't to love? But the idea that such a phenomenon has reached little old New Zealand just took me by surprise.

The hell are you looking at, Crocodile Dundee?

Maybe it's because New Zealand isn't so "little" as we like to pretend we are. We're about four million people living in two pretty substantial islands in the south Pacific. It doesn't make is castaways, and it doesn't make us look at the sheep in a funny way, no matter what the Australians like to say. We're part of a global community, and we're participating in it. Some of our own culture has gained traction - Flight of the Conchords, for example. And any Rugby fan knows who the All Blacks are - they're practically our Defence Force, protecting the country against the humiliation of sporting defeat. They just can't seem to be able to win a world cup, a concerning fact since we're hosting the World Cup right now. And even that's part of our increasing participation in the global stage - we're hosting a major sporting event! We've hosted Commonwealth Games before, but this is our national sport. We're getting tourists coming in, seeing the sites, getting drunk or robbed (the Kiwi Experience), and we're finding our way - Auckland's public transportation system seems to be overflowing with the unexpected traffic, despite the months that went into planning the event. But that's fine - as John Hammond said, "all major theme parks have had delays. When they opened Disneyland in 1956, nothing worked!" We've turned ourselves into Kiwi Land for a few months, and this is a good thing.

Major sporting events seem to have a history of bankrupting the places that hold them. The Olympic Games beggars the cities that have hosted them, like Sydney, Montreal, Barcelona and Athens. It even hit Beijing, although the cost of lip syncing the national anthem over little girls and shooting at clouds with artillery probably put more of a dent in the costs. But the theory is that the public attention they receive more than makes up for it - the leap in tourist traffic injects capital, and leads to more tourists coming and spending their thick wads of cash. I don't know how successful it's been, but I hope it's true - the cost of the RWC opening ceremony probably drained the national treasury.

But there are other aspects of entering the global culture that have a more...immediate effect. On me, specifically. Because if there is one thing I cannot stand, if there's one thing that gets me grumpy on a monday morning, it is looking up from my notebook to see the first-year girl in front of me has got her expensive laptop out, and is just browsing Facebook.

What is this I dont even

I'm at university to learn. I'd say I'm there to get qualifications for a job, but really, how many jobs are available for someone specialising in English and History in this economy? But the point is that I'm there to learn. I can't afford a laptop, so I have to make do with notebooks. I buy nice, if overprices pens, to try and boost my ego. And the lectures we take aren't exactly something you can just gloss over. We get the notes online, but in condensed form - and you lose something of the performance sometimes. Seeing Dr. Mark Houlahan in full flight, barging his way through the "um"s and "ah"s to his magnificent points, is like Shakespeare - you can just read it, but you lose all the nuance. And this girl, who's 21st birthday present was probably an expensive car, who is using a laptop that could pay for a couple of papers, who goes out drinking and partying every night, is totally disinterested. It doesn't matter that she's wasting hundreds of dollars if the fails the classes - mummy and daddy will pick up the tab.

I'm generalising a lot. It's also guys, who look up Call of Duty, watch people beating the hell out of each other during our Writing Fiction lecture, and who eventually stop coming to class. But at least they don't talk! I'm sorry, ladies, but this is one stereotype that you can't seem to shake off - you talk so bloody much! Sometimes it's just under your breath, in the mistaken belief that nobody can hear you - we can, and it just creates a low buzz of chatter. Sometimes you don't even bother, and the lecturer has to shout to be heard. I don't care if Jennifer dumped her boyfriend on Sunday, or if you got your nails done at that shop on Victoria street, or that Brenda's highlights look fabulous. I don't want to hear the clacking of fingers/thumbs on the keypad of your phone, or your Hillary Duff blaring from your earphones. What's the point of that? You wear earphones so that everybody else doesn't have to hear what you're listening to! I'm there to take notes, and listen to the lecturer, not your weekend itinerary.

I think it's partially the very fact that you can get the notes online that makes people consider lectures as just something to turn up to to meet your friends after a weekend of partying. There's no urgency - if you miss something, you can just hit up moodle. If you're studying, you can just get the lecture notes - they're just as good, aren't they? Moodle was invented by an Australian and tested at Curtin University, Perth, and is an online source for lecture notes, supplementary materials, tutorial activities, assignments, forums and message boards, and for some papers, even podcasts. I'm not saying it's a bad thing - exactly the opposite, it's revolutionising the way students take their notes, and the way they study. But it comes with a price, and that is naive first-years who think they can just cruise as if they were still in Secondary School (what we call College). There's a difference, kids - you're not here because you have to be, or because a truant officer knows your usual hangouts. You're here because you chose to be, because you're paying money! Money that you're eventually going to have to pay back!

I was going to put a quote here, but just go read Revelation 13:1, 3-8

Did anyone expect it to be used for social networking back in 1996, with our first internet connection? (Courtesy of the University of Waikato, I patriotically add.) By the start of the new millenium, broadband was being offered to the public. At the same time, however, it is far inferior to most first-world nations - we pay based on data used, not the speed it is processed at, and it's expensive because Telecom still has a virtual monopoly on it, although that's starting to change as other companies gain ground. Most of it still runs on the old copper wire, because Telecom is too cheap to upgrade to fiberwire. Given the difficulty and expense of it, and its limits, is Facebook really that vital?

It's not even as if they need the laptops. The university has a number of computer rooms that students can use. We even get a free gigabyte a month! So why do they need to browse on their laptops during lectures?

In the end, I guess boredom is the universal experience of a student, and it's finding new expression - in the old days, you might just doodle contentedly in the margins, or work on the manuscript for your thousand page novel about the stalinist purges, a lens grinder, a broken marriage and a journalist in search of truth. I still doodle, and work on "other" stuff, ie my writing. I don't need to talk, and I don't try - I refrain from interrupting other students' learning experiences. But students who have laptops enjoy an instant link to the world, and make use of it - and it is bloody distracting.

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