Homesick freshmen connect via Facebook
Posted on August 27, 2007
Just 10 years ago, most students didn’t know anything about their first-year roommates until move-in day.
Today, with the help of technology, freshmen can make and keep contact with their new roommates during the summer.
While technological innovations have made it easier for the county’s 2 million or more incoming freshmen to build friendships with their peers, a study recently released by the Washington Post found that over-reliance on technology can also make it easier for students to hold on to past lives and relationships, complicating their transition from high school to college.
According to the Post, overuse of technology to create and maintain relationships may leave freshmen less willing to confront new challenges, test their beliefs, or engage in serious introspection about their lives. Rather than making an effort to change, many fall into the same patterns they held in high school.
This occurs as more and more students turn to the easy connections that technology allows as a means of combating homesickness, which 65 percent of college freshman suffer from, according to the Post.
Preparing to leave home for the first time, freshmen can use services such as Facebook or text messaging not only to keep in touch with former friends, but to form new relationships with future dorm-mates. Students can compare notes on who’s bringing which supplies into the dorm and learn everything about their future roommate before they even move in.
Rather than plunging into new situations, students may rely on old relationships to get them through their first year.
Some feel this might not be a bad thing.
Junior Annie Barnes contacted her roommate before moving in and said it helped her to feel more comfortable with the move.
“It’s a way for students to find their way in a big university,” she said.
Freshmen also understand the value of making contact with their roommates prior to moving in with them.
“We’re human, so we want to make things easier for ourselves,” Jio Vick said. “I got to know my roommate before I moved in, so it makes (the process) less uncomfortable.”
Vick is one of many students across the nation who feel this way.
57 percent of 16 to 21-year-olds report making friends online, said the Post, adding that quick connections allow freshmen to maintain a big pool of potential support during an often-complicated time in their lives. The Post also reported that 62 percent of teens said that talking to friends online makes them feel as though they are always connected.
Freshman Penelope Norton thinks this is a good thing. Having spoken to her roommate via Facebook before coming to campus, she said that the benefits definitely outweigh the costs.
“I got to know my roommate’s likes and dislikes,” she said. “If anything I got to know her better.”