Our generation will not be remembered for industrialization or back-breaking labor. We missed the Second Wave of the feminist movement by a couple of decades, and we were toddlers when the Berlin wall and all its iconic symbolism crashed to the ground.

However, our generation will be acknowledged as the originators of a worldwide fever, a pandemic of sorts.

We have been diagnosed with an addiction characterized by obsessive, compulsive dependence on a communication tool.

When we sit down at a computer to look up information for a paper or check our e-mail accounts, we are compelled to open up another tab and satisfy the desperation of our Facebook-feigning fingers. We are the generation of Facebook addicts.

The advent of this communication resource has made it possible for even the most introverted student to experience metamorphosis into a social butterfly.

Not only do we multitask more than any other generation, we expect our technological devices to be able to do the same. Our cellular devices are inappropriately, and deceptively, referred to as “phones.”

They are also cameras, games, computers, messaging devices, calendars, calculators, voice recorders, video cameras and alarm clocks.

What with the advent of eBay, online food ordering capabilities, online college courses and Internet social tools, it’s quite possible that one could live a relatively complete life, satisfying all of the basic physiological and social needs without ever leaving home.

What’s more, these technological advances have fostered worldwide communities, fostering communication between people who live oceans away from one another.

The amazing thing about such social networks as Facebook is not their existence in general.

It is the ability of these tools to transcend boundaries of race, status and age, attracting some of the most complicated demographics to target, and mobilizing membership bases that exceed 100 million active users.

In all of this hoopla centered around students’ constant attraction to this network and others like it, we have neglected to ask an important question.

As technology continues to advance, undergoing constant stages of metamorphosis to maintain students’ attention – researching their needs and meeting them effectively – why is it that our academic institutions continue to resist change in order to maintain traditional academic processes?

We still sit in lectures with more than 75 other students, an ineffective practice that denies individual attention and does not meet the needs of all students involved.

While we have been equipped with such tools as Desire2Learn, or D2Hell as one of my teachers refers to it, in many instances, less than half of my teachers employ this device.

Some of our public schools – primary and secondary – are ill-equipped in terms of space, materials and educators, denying students the opportunity to advance educationally – an opportunity that was unique to America at one time.

Now, as the age of Facebook is upon us and continues to capitalize on and prosper from students’ attraction to all things technological, our schools are lacking the three things that social networks and other internet resources have – efficiency, convenience and affordability.

It is painfully evident that our public education institutions have not taken their cue from the advancements of the technological world.

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