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Class Of 2014: Email Obsolete

How does this year's incoming class of college freshmen feel about email? E-what? Though most are familiar with the communication channel, few use it because they consider it "too slow," according to the Mindset List -- a list of information about incoming freshmen compiled every year by administrators at Wisconsin's Beloit College. Also, while most claim to know what a wristwatch is, few actually own one, and many have "never recognized that pointing to their wrists was a request for the time of day."

Further illustrating our culture's growing dependence on digital devices, few freshman entering college this year claim to have ever written in cursive, notes The New York Times' Bits blog. According to the List, the class also believes that there have always been "hundreds of cable channels but nothing to watch." The List was first developed in 1998 by Tom McBride and Ron Nief, faculty members at Beloit, to help professors better communicate with new generations of students.

Read the whole story at Beloit University »

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