“Schools are not called to follow the pace of the digital world, but to offer that which the digital sphere by itself cannot provide, namely a shared time for learning and developing trustworthy relationships.”
Pope Leo XIV, “Magnifica Humanitas”
For the last several decades, the trend in education has been towards more technology. Tax money funds “smart” classrooms, students use only the internet to research their papers, and libraries boast that they will soon have no books. In spite of this trend, WCC has chosen to limit technology: computers are not allowed in the classroom, papers come fundamentally from books and the minds engaged with them, no internet is allowed in the dorms, and students do not even carry cell phones.
Why this radical approach? Not because the College is against technology but because the College is in favor of human flourishing. To see this, one must consider the effects of emerging technology.
As experience shows, connectivity and communion are not the same. An overdependence on digital technologies separates man from what is real. True interpersonal relationships are replaced by digital networks. Interior quiet and focused attention are lost amidst a stream of distractions. And the rising reliance on AI threatens to frustrate the very process of learning.
For a society that is already saturated with social media and technology, a recovery of a fully human approach requires (1) calling the absolute value of technology into question, (2) occasionally “fasting” from current technologies in order to re-sensitize people to the effects they have on their lives and relationships, and (3) providing a space for the creation of an authentic and fully human culture.
As Josef Pieper described in his 1952 article “Learning to See Again”:
“We already mentioned simple abstention, a regimen of fasting and abstinence, by which we would try to keep the visual noise of daily inanities at a distance. Such an approach seems to me indeed an indispensable first step but, all the same, no more than the removal, say, of a roadblock. A better and more immediately effective remedy is this: to be active oneself in artistic creation, producing shapes and forms for the eye to see.”
So also in our case, the practice of fasting from various technologies is not an end in itself but rather an indispensable first step for promoting a culture of the real: real encounter with nature, with the Great Books, with others, and ultimately with God. The technology fast at WCC makes possible a thriving community, a place where students are not just passively entertained but rather a place where students can live life to the full.
Our graduates will likely choose to restrict their use of technology in various ways. However, they will also be equipped to take advantage of the internet while subjecting it to the goals of contemplation, to use a device while retaining interior quiet, and to carry a cell phone while preserving personal contact. In short, they will know how to master technology rather than serving it – and they will communicate this hope to others. In Ratzinger’s words, “Christianity will offer models of life in new ways and will once again present itself in the wasteland of technological existence as a place of true humanity.”
“It’s a release, really, not having a cell phone. When you are no longer captivated by technology, you find your true and real self.
We are so tech savvy these days, but something that is really prevalent is our inability to genuinely communicate at a human-to-human, face-to-face level.
I don’t want to be someone who is just texting friends and not talking to them, or have a Facebook profile define who I am.”
Erin McNeely (née Milligan), Class of 2015
