Could Face-to-Face be Phased Out?

As the dulcet tones of one of my university lecturers echoed through the corridor of my flat this afternoon, it dawned on me that personal contact isn't quite as important as it maybe once was. We (that being myself and 2 of my flatmates) had a lecture today that was replaced by a recorded lecture which was online. It was the same stuff that we would have been told had we all trudged over to the lecture theatre as our timetables tell us to but this week the lecturer in question was unable to attend and so made a digital version instead. It's a curiosity of the modern era that, in a time when we are told as youngsters to get away from the computer screen and become more sociable, we are being fed more and more information via the internet. Personally I like it because it adds a new level of flexibility to your day - something that I'm starting to feel is essential after only 3 days of 2nd year - but its long term affects could be perilous.

I wasn't surprised at the volume of information that we, as law students, get given through the medium of the World Wide Web when I first came to university. We can watch lectures from previous years, we can catch up on lectures that we missed during our own year and we can access a plethora of other sources which form a large chunk of the reading a research that is required of us. I could (if I was this way inclined) download all of my lectures and watch and/or listen to them on my iPod. This is an example of how universities are keeping up with the slick pace of the modern era. It's vital that we can access these things whenever and wherever we need them because otherwise we would get left behind. For me it's hard to comprehend how people were able to learn in the past when the only facility that was really available to them was the library - something that probably only makes up about 30% of my academic routine.

People that have been reading this blog since its birth about a year and a half ago will know that I can be quite a solitary person when it comes to studying. I like the peace and quiet that my own company brings when I'm trying to learn things and I feel that this style helps me a lot (possibly ironically) when it comes to group work. If I'm able to work out something in my own and get it to make sense to me, I am then able to properly articulate it to others. This being the case, I think I'm living in the right period of time because I've not even had to adapt to computers and modern technology; I was born into it. 

The only problem that I can see with the advanced uses of computers and the internet is that it takes people away from each other. I might very well work better alone but I'm not sure I would learn nearly half as well if I wasn't able to spend time with people, talking and listening to them. Every year I see more and more things being committed to the internet and I can see the day when you will be able to access everything just from the click of a button. That day might not dawn during my lifetime but the warning that I put out to you this evening is that you need to make sure that you don't let the internet rule your life. Yes it's a fantastic source of knowledge and information but discussion and debate with other people is always going to be the key to success.

Thanks for reading,

Martin