Cell phones on campus make cutting the umbilical cord more difficult

Kansas City Star: Cell phones on campus make cutting the umbilical cord more difficult

All those cell phones on college campuses aren’t just talking to each other.

They’re speed-dialing home. A lot.

Got a problem with university bureaucracy? Mom and Dad will know what to do. Time to kill between classes? Chat up Mom or Dad. Think you just blew a chemistry exam? Unload on the folks.

Not to mention the calls going the other direction.

“One mom mentioned that she calls her son to wake him up in the morning,” said Sandy Waddell, assistant dean of students at Rockhurst University. “She said if she didn’t, he might not make it to class. I told her I thought that was a bit over the top.”

…….

…At orientation sessions, Waddell tells parents the college years are a time for emancipation, when young adults learn to handle matters on their own.

“The parents have to give their child the permission to do that,” she said. “It has become increasingly difficult because the students are so used to using their phones and talking to their parents. I just think it delays that maturity.”

The cell phone no doubt can be a conduit in a close parent-child relationship. One thing is certain: Everyday contact between young adults and their parents is the new normal.

“It’s the way families are,” said Marjorie Savage, parent program director at the University of Minnesota. “One thing we really have to keep in mind is that life is not like it was when we went to college, even if you went to college five years ago.”

Here is the stat I found stunning.

In a study released earlier this year by the Pew Research Center, 82 percent of all 18- to 25-year-olds said they had talked to their parents in the past day.

I read an article sometime back that interviewed the CEO of a major corporation on young adults coming into the workplace. He said this generation was adept at networking to accomplish an assigned task. However, he was disturbed by the inability of so many to grasp abstract vision and then translate that vision into prioritized actions. (Essentially, great on tactics, horrible on strategy.) This article also reminded me of an article I read about "helicopter parents" who hover over children through college, even to the point that employers have to deal with parents who want to accompany their young adult children on their job interviews. A human resources director at a large local corporation told me that one of the most frequent complaints she hears from middle managers and their superiors is the constant need for recognition and praise these young adults have. I see a pattern here.

To be honest, I find this disturbing. Are we creating perpetual childhood? Or am I just getting old?