Back in the day when dinosaurs roamed the earth and we had black-and-white-screened computers, life was simpler. Doogie Houser, the teenage genius of the early 90s, sat at his computer typing his daily diary entries as we watched in awe, jealous of his capabilities.

We worried about what our moms made us for lunch, or how hard third-grade spelling tests were going to be Friday. Years later there was computer class, with colored screens. The resolution was terrible, but it was better than black and white. What was resolution back then anyway?

Now, we know that in order to be successful in our classes, we must know how to use computers. Typically we even bring our own, now portable, laptop computers to college. We can carry them in our book-bags without them weighing us down, as they are now lighter than the Webster dictionaries we use for foot rests.

Is it the computer we are dependent on or the Internet? As I sit here in Charlton Hall without an Internet connection, I am lost. What is one to do without the Internet? Read a book? Talk to a friend? Do some homework? Oh no. Oh, my.

How do you do those things without a computer? The last time I read a book was last semester in Modern Ethics. Oh, the good old days.

There is not a place on campus where students can be found without computers. Technology is one of the biggest aspects to Morrisville's uniqueness. Computers are such an important part of our everyday lives--not just our personal lives, but our academic lives as well. We need our computers to survive. They offer us the chance to stay connected with everything that is going on in the world. So what happens when we have a problem with our computers? Does the world end, or are we just too dramatic?

Brian Petrella, a fifth-year sports nutrition HPHP major set to graduate next spring, does not consider himself a dependent computer user. Brian said typically in a day he is on the computer for about four hours for homework, email, and instant-messaging.

Amanda Goodrum, a sophomore who is going to graduate next spring and is a Food Service Administration student, says she spends at least two hours of her day on the computer. Amanda does not consider herself a dependent computer user. Asked what she would do if her computer crashed and put on a waiting list to get fixed, she  replied, "I think I'd be okay."

On the other hand there were students like Amanda Stang, a freshman 2012 Dairy Science major, who said she spends between two and five hours a day on the computer. Amanda was not quite sure if she qualified as computer dependent, but more than likely. Amanda uses her computer for email, homework, and the internet. "I'd be lost; I'd have no way of getting hold of professors, or ways of talking with friends, and surfing the net."

Surprisingly, the more students were asked about their computer usage, the more they claimed they were not dependent on them. Tina Sparks for instance, a sophomore equine major, does not consider herself computer-dependent. "Oh God no, I could deal without it forever. It doesn't bother me. I didn't have a computer 'til I came here. If her computer were to crash, Tina said, "I wouldn't care. I wouldn't get it fixed; I wouldn't wait because I'm not patient."

Ginger MacRae, one of two Help Desk Coordinators in the Charlton Hall Computer Services Department, said that in a typical day twenty to fifty people show up in need of assistance with their computers. MacRae said that "once in a while" students get upset with her about their computer. "They don't want to hear that their computer can't be fixed." It is obvious that there are all types of people in this world, all of which have different feelings about technology, but MacRae said, "People in general have come to depend more and more on computers."