With the digital revolution, we now exist as two entities. There is the "digital" self, who writes with the swiftness of the Internet and the anonymity of an IP address, and the "real" self, who walks and talks. With every medium and context, of course, we must adapt to a new protocol-whether it be communicating without body language over the phone, or choosing to curb one's tongue before calling home.
But more and more, that digital persona is less a supplement to our "real" self than an equal counterpart. A phone call lasts a few minutes. But Duke students and professors are online almost constantly now, spending several hours a day writing e-mails, doing research, checking Facebook and the like. As The Chronicle found last year, only a handful of students come to Duke without a personal computer now; for many of us, it's unthinkable. And when you're talking to someone on AOL Instant Messenger for two hours who you don't even say hi to in the hall, you've got to wonder: Who's really on the other end?
A growing number of Duke professors have legitimized this schizophrenia-the breaking down of students into "digital" and "real" selves-by using computer technology in a way that doesn't make sense. Blackboard, in particular, has become a force of alienation.
In theory, Blackboard offers students and professors a chance to collaborate outside the classroom. But, in practice, all that seems to result-in my experience at least-is a two-faced discourse. Students and professors engage each other as their "digital selves" at night, then pretend it never happened, going back to lecture as usual in the day. We get more busywork to do, in the form of silly chat room discussions, paragraph responses and constant, excessive feedback-but what's the value of it?
Tools like Blackboard are perfect for uniting people across otherwise insurmountable distances. If students from across the globe were taking Writing 20, perhaps an online forum for meeting would make sense-but since we all gather in a physical classroom every week anyway, it doesn't. On the contrary, it gives us the false impression that our shared time in the classroom is expendable, equivalent to the isolated hours of typing alone on a computer. The reason students pay hundreds of thousands of dollars to come here is to spend time in the presence of others who value learning and scholarship; Blackboard seems to say it's a waste.
Even if Blackboard were to succeed-by influencing classroom discourse with the highlights from online discussion-I am unconvinced that we would want it to. This mixing of two worlds violates a false, but fundamental, tenet of the Internet: that our real self cannot be held accountable for the sins of the "digital" self. Duke students who have landed in hot water for incriminating photos on Facebook have learned this lesson the hard way. The same holds, I imagine, for people whose classmates have discovered their Livejournals, old web sites, or ill-advised blog posts. How many drunken e-mails, taken out of context, have thwarted a friendship?
For real learning to happen, students need the security and privacy of a classroom-a place where even the most far-fetched comments are treated as explorations, not liabilities.
"When you screw up now, it's Google-able," said Christopher Buckley, editor of Forbes FYI and a former writer for the Yale Daily News, in a piece for Slate last November. "In the old days, you just had to wait three days and no one would remember." Everyone says things he regrets. Even if Blackboard-bound professors were to ignore off-topic comments and focus on good ones, do we really want to be under scrutiny 24 hours a day?
We can only pray that Duke students-who, aided by the growing features of Facebook and Myspace, are parsing themselves into "digital" and "real" selves more and more-do not go too far. One of the beauties of a university is an opportunity for trial and error in a supportive environment. Being able to meet thousands of wonderful people by walking down the hall, rather than on a website, is another one.
The computer, and our increasing academic reliance on it, threatens both of those hallmarks. After graduation, you'll have a much harder time meeting people your age-and in terms of responsibility, you'll almost always be given enough rope to hang yourself. Don't ask for it too soon.
Andrew Gerst, former managing editor of Towerview, graduated from Trinity in 2006 and now lives and works in Washington, D.C. His column runs every other Wednesday.
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