Look around any university class and you’ll observe a sea of students plugged into their smartphones. How distracted are U of T students? More than half check social media at least once in each class. Some even admit to being addicted to the constant stream of status updates. “I’m usually texting my friends who are 20 hours away in Brunei,” says Cynthia Wang, a second year psychology student. “I can’t stay away from it because I miss them.”
Other students don’t see this as a good use of their time, especially during lectures. “This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to go to a university of such high calibre,” says MA candidate Sasha Reid. “To waste even a minute, browsing something that can wait, you miss a part of life and living.”
This highly unscientific poll of 100 students was conducted on the St. George campus in January.
Recent Posts
Clearing the Air
U of T wants to drastically cut carbon emissions by 2050. It’s enlisting on-campus ingenuity for help
The Extremism Machine
Online disinformation poses a danger to society. Researchers at U of T’s Citizen Lab are tracking it – and trying to figure out how to stop it
Charting Hip Hop’s Course
Professor Mark V. Campbell grew up during the early years of rap music. Now, he is helping preserve Canadian hip-hop culture for future generations