CUTTING THE APRON STRINGS

 There is substantial evidence that students going off to college have changed over the years. For one thing, studies show that they are emotionally closer to their parents and their parents to them. One thing that means is that they depend on each other more for happiness. It puts a burden on children for parents to use their children as vehicles for their own happiness- although today’s young people seem complicit in this arrangement, perhaps because they’ve known no other way-even if it creates anxiety in the children. That’s one reason parents like to be involved in their children’s college experiences, and colleges have had to devise novel ways of getting parents off campus when they transport their kids to school.

 There’s also evidence that students today seem to be choosing schools with reference to proximity to home. The closer a student is to home, the easier it is to bring the laundry home and to land in your old bed with tea and sympathy when you have the sniffles. And the easier it is for parents to visit you at university whenever the mood strikes. The amount of visiting parents do is far more than in generations past.

 But in a real sense, students don’t really leave their parents behind. Their parents go to college right along with them - in their front pockets. That is, the parents are a speed dial away by cell phone. This, of course, significantly reduces independence. A student doesn’t get the chance to solve minor problems on his own - he just calls Mom or Dad. A student has initial problems getting along with a roommate? A roommate doesn’t do laundry as often as the other roommate wishes? A student gets a C grade on her first paper? Instead of absorbing the negative information and figuring out how to resolve the problem or how to do better, the call gets made to home, where Mom or Dad solves the problem, often by calling the school administration. This kind of behavior is, sadly, commonplace today and is a mark of the lack of coping skills among students because all the lumps and bumps have been taken out of life for them until now.

 In addition to being tethered to parents, incoming freshmen are now very heavily connected by cell phone to classmates from high school, who are presumably at other colleges. So there isn’t the great impetus to mix and venture forth to meet new people, to get out of one’s comfort zone, to get drawn into new experiences, that has traditionally marked the beginning of freshman year. The laws of physics still apply, and it is difficult to be meeting new people and seeking novel experiences while you are talking to your old pals.

The provision of mobile phones for children, according to the author, _________.