Too Connected?

Is it ironic that I am blogging to express my opinion on an article about how college students who are too connected with their families via facebook, twitter, etc may not be maturing the same as past generations of students?

This past week I read a blog posting from a class member, Aaron, regarding an article he read titled "Constant contact between college students and parents could hinder development." The article basically discussed how today's college students have a number of options available to stay in nearly constant contact with their friends and families at home or abroad. The article is ultimately a review or advertisement for a book called "Letting Go: A Parents Guide to Understanding the College Years," yet there are some comments that reconfirm my opinion that constant contact between parents (or friends) and students actually deters growth, maturity, and student satisfaction at college.

I've come to recognize the need for constant contact with others outside the campus community to be a litmus test for the perseverance or retention of student athletes. I've come to this conclusion based on observations I've made over the past decade. Some observations include athletes who would rather call friends and family while riding to and from competitions rather than talking to teammates in the van; individuals who constantly text and then talk about the non-academic ventures of their high school friends; students who continuously update their social networking sites and then make comments about how much fun others are having as compared themselves. I can go on-and-on...

This past year I realized that the constant contact has implications on others as well. An colleague of mine was working (as an athletic trainer) with a team where one particular student-athlete was showing signs of dissatisfaction with the team and coach. Eventually the student met with the coach and quit the team. A few days later the team had an important conference game where they played exceptionally poor, causing them to lose miserably. After the contest the coach brought the team together in the locker room for a post-game discussion. The meeting ended with the coach saying, "If you ever play that bad again I'll kill you."

The next day, the athletic director and college president received calls from the parents of the student who quit the team. They wanted to voice their concerns about why their son or daughter quit the team...including mentioning the threat made to the entire team the night before by the coach...even though their child was not in the meeting and was not a recipient of the perceived threat.

When my friend tells this story he follows up by saying the coach became very paranoid and often made comments like "Do you think he/she is complaining about me?" when he'd see athletes texting or using their smart phones. He'd also make comments to his team like "I'd tell you that you played awful today, but I would not want you to beam my comment up to some satellite and have it bounce back to your mommy and daddy only to have them call my boss and have him tell me to be nicer to you."

Upon reading this you might think I feel that students should go to college and never contact home, or that I think it is bad to maintain bonds with friends and family who are outside the college community. You couldn't be more wrong. I think it is important to maintain bonds with the family and relationships with friends. However, I think it is also important that parents let their children grow and at least make their own attempts at either success or failure.

Do you or any of your "friends" have a story regarding college students and the influence that being connected to parents/home has on their college experience?