Watching the Carleton College documentary “Disconnected” really made me think about being a student and just how much we need computers to stay on top of all of our work.  Given that the film was produced a few years ago, it was interesting to see the differences between computer use then and now.  For example, the layout of Facebook was completely different back then.  🙂  In all seriousness, though, a lot of the Carleton students’ computer use was based around email, e-Reserves, and word processing for papers.  I would say that’s the same today, but we also have a huge spread of social media that occupies much of our lives.  I think if we were to spend weeks without computers, we’d find ourselves missing out on a whole lot more than just the occasional “wall post” or email about a campus event.  That being said, it was interesting to see the phones that these students had.  I’m pretty sure all of them had basic flip phones, which I can barely even remember being in existence.  If we were just forced to give up computers today, it would be so much easier because almost all of us have iPhones that do many of the tasks computers are used for.  But if we gave up computers AND phones, then we would definitely have a problem.  Overall, though, this movie helped me to see the simple, but many uses we have for computers as students at Middlebury and how difficult it would be to go about our academic lives without them.

The one part of the movie that irked me was when the Payroll office told the students that they had to use computers to enter their work hours to get paid.  One would think that at a small college like Carleton, the staff would be able to work around a few students and their independent project.  It bugged me that these staff members wouldn’t try to find a way to help them complete their task, but also made me realize just how essential computers are to certain parts of life.