Second Blog fof Final; Final Blog

The more I think about and work on this paper I really see how much a college education encourages the use of technology. Before writing my paper I made a list of all the instances where some sort of technology was required or promoted by college. I just started to type and before I even realized it I had a page single spaced of all the times I used technology of some college related event. These really ran from the obvious of writing a paper, to paying for food etc with a college id/swipe card. The idea of swipe cards really got me thinking about how school technologies teach money spending habits. Students use a swipe cards to pay for nearly everything on campus, which changes how students learn to interact with money. This is an age, I believe, where people need to learn a sense of responsibility for money. After college is real life with real bills. Students should use this time in college, especially at Rutgers where a lot of students live off campus, to become accustomed to the saving and spending of money. However, using cards to pay for everything from cafeteria food to vending machines can create a dangerous mindset where students see money as something abstract rather than tangible. By swiping instead of using money people remove themselves from the real idea of money. If a person has cash on them, I think, they have a better understanding of the amount they hold and that this can run out. A card, a symbol of money, makes people accustomed to not really dealing with money and thinking of it in more intangible terms. Add to this that most parents pay for their child’s swipe card makes it hard for students to learn how to have a responsibility to money. This is also an age where people will start to receive applications for credit cards. Being accustomed to not supplying the money, and simply swiping a card to pay for something can become a very dangerous combination. It becomes too easy to get into credit card debt and not even realize how it happens. By having and using a swipe card this subtle and every day way, college students interact with a form of technology which has a potentially huge impact on behavior. It is scary how a swipe card and lead to credit card debt but these are outcomes of becoming compliant to technology.