Harrisburg University Plans Week-Long Social Media Blackout

A Pennsylvania college is requiring students to power down and unplug from social media -- for an entire week.

Harrisburg University of Science and Technology Provost Eric Darr got the idea while watching his daughter toggle with social networks, Inside Higher Ed first reported last week.

He decided to conduct an experiment using a convenient sample: Harrisburg's student body. IHE has more:

Information technology officials at Harrisburg will block access to those popular social media tools from computers using the campus network. They will also disable the wiki and chat features in the university's Moodle-based learning management system. The barriers will remain in place for one week.

Students, who will be asked to write essays reflecting on their time in social-media exile, will not be the only ones affected. Faculty and staff will also be unable to visit the sites -- at least not through the campus network.

The blackout won't affect students living off-campus. Students on campus will be allowed to use email, Mashable reports.

The ploy has garnered considerable media attention, but is not without its skeptics. Social media critic Jaron Lanier told NPR that the blackout may be "too extreme" and "would prefer that students donate a penny to charity every time they access social media" to raise awareness of how much they used it.

What do you think? Is this experiment a good idea? Weigh in below.

Comments

[WatchingHU]

11:45 AM on 09/18/2010

It's commuter campus--there is NO student housing! And there is a Starbucks a block away with free Wi-Fi!

-meh
-------------------------------
HU blog: http://watchinghu.wordpress.com/

[medulla oblongata]

11:53 AM on 09/15/2010

I'm not sure what all of the fuss is about. There was no such thing as social media when I was in college, and we survived.

[GeorgeZaluski]

09:51 AM on 09/15/2010

I would like to see the findings of this experiment. Hope they follow-up with the results.

[LightShadow62]

11:52 PM on 09/14/2010

I wonder if they even bothered to check how much social network traffic there was on the school computers. I think at best this will be a minor inconvenience since most people use their phones for their networking away from home.

[ThomGillespie]

04:04 PM on 09/14/2010

One of the more moronic educational exercises in recent history. This has been attempted since the beginning of electronic communication: week without radio, week without television, month without movies. What would be interesting would be a week without books and no reading. Everyone can go camping at Glacier national Park up near Grinnell Glacier for a week. That would be highly educational.

[Dani Cothern]

09:19 PM on 09/14/2010

You do know that Pennsylvania is not near Glacier National Park, yes?

[Michael Strickland]

03:59 PM on 09/14/2010

Plus, it's a school of technology. I have a feeling more than a few students know how to use ssh to get around any blog the school could impose.

[weirwolf]

03:43 PM on 09/14/2010

can't keep the crack from the crack head.

[Tails]

02:42 PM on 09/14/2010

Oh, dear.

Now people my age are faced with the horrible option of face to face interaction.

[Brentasaurus]

02:03 PM on 09/14/2010

this is a weak experiment all around, they dont account for any variables.... how did these people become professors?

[Dennis West]

01:37 PM on 09/14/2010

I don't think this will really work since so many people have access to facebook using their phones. Blocking the site from campus servers will not stop them from accessing it over cell phone carrier networks. In addition a lot of people also have notifications being sent to their emails .

[Lisbeth35]

07:10 PM on 09/14/2010

I thought something similar. I don't think it will really matter since they can access it through other mobile devices and computers at home. In the end, I imagine, the university will just notice a significant drop of computer usage on campus.

[jonrice]

12:47 PM on 09/14/2010

A rather draconian way to make a point. Social media, even when it leads to procrastination, has its merits. This would be fine if students could opt in/out (such as TV free week), but blocking it from campus as a whole giving students no option doesn’t seem fully reasonable.

[Claw2122]

12:03 PM on 09/14/2010

I don't even use social media besides HP and IMVU but i find this to be overkill, especially since they're even harming themselves with blocking some of their own learning features. How smart is that?