Faculty First Year Seminars 191COMM3 - Network Fever

Are you willing to let go of your smart phone or laptop for a week, a month, a year, perhaps even longer? What if you
were not even permitted to use the telephone or to write letters? If not, why not? What do you think you might lose
in these situations? What would your life be like? Would it be better or worse and why? It seems clear that we now
live in what is called network society: we live in networks; we work hard to network with one another; and perhaps
we have become networks in some way. More than that, we are also surrounded by talks about networks. I call this
condition Network Fever. In this course, we will reflect on this condition, starting with our experiences of networking.
A set of brief readings will be provided to establish our topics of discussion. And I encourage you to suggest readings
or topics for discussion as well. Network fever is here to stay. Let us see if we should cool down or raise the
temperature. Or is the temperature just where it should be?

Freshmen Only