Students participating in Cornell University’s Cornell Unplugged initiative are encouraged to decrease technology use and increase face-to-face interaction.
Cornell University
Mikael Murphy-Rendón, a third-year environmental engineering student at Cornell University, starts his day watching YouTube videos over breakfast before hopping on his computer to do computational research or pulling out his iPad to take notes in class.
When the class is small, Murphy-Rendón said he sits in the front and uses his iPad strictly for note-taking, only checking his email or texts during breaks. But on some days, especially in larger classes with 200 students or more, Murphy-Rendón finds himself drifting onto other apps.
“I wouldn’t be able to tell you if that has had an impact on my grades or my academic performance,” Murphy-Rendón said. “But I do find myself spending more time outside of class going over the material because I wasn’t as engaged inside of the classroom.”
This week, however, Murphy-Rendón is putting down his iPad and picking up a pen and paper. He’s joining students, faculty and staff participating in Cornell Unplugged, a new weeklong initiative that asks the campus community to decrease technology use and increase face-to-face interaction. For Murphy-Rendón, that means taking notes by hand and being more intentional about spending time in person with friends.
“I’m hoping to develop better habits,” Murphy-Rendón said. “And I’m really hoping to feel a bit more satisfied with the work that I’m doing, and be more mindful and intentional in my decisions.”
Rethinking tech use: As colleges increasingly incorporate technology and artificial intelligence into the student experience, Cornell is asking its campus community to consider a different question: When might students be better off without it?
Cornell Unplugged encourages participants to put down their devices during meals, attend in-person events and spend more time engaging with their classmates and nature. Faculty members are also encouraged to consider tech-free or tech-light exercises in their classrooms.
The initiative is designed to get participants to think about their relationship with technology across three areas: how excessive use can contribute to social isolation and disconnection, whether unplugging can encourage more thoughtful and human-centered approaches to teaching and learning, and the environmental costs associated with computing and AI.
Steven Jackson, chair of the Cornell Sustainable Computing Working Group and vice provost for academic innovation at Cornell, said timing the initiative to coincide with the beginning of the academic year is intended to give students an opportunity to establish more mindful technology habits early on. It also comes amid broader concerns about student loneliness on campuses and the ways excessive technology use may exacerbate it.
“Tech is certainly not the only or even necessarily the main culprit in that,” Jackson said. “But we do see instances where tech dependency may be contributing to students’ inability to form the kinds of connections that we want them to make on campus.”
The initiative is also intended to draw attention to how unrestricted screen use in classrooms can distract students and interfere with learning.
“We think of this as the secondhand screen problem, with the analogy to secondhand smoke, because it also affects students who are not themselves screen users in class,” Jackson said. Some students with their devices open may be on task, he noted, while others could be doing anything from checking sports scores to shopping online.
“That is obviously a distraction to the student whose screen is open, but it’s also a distraction to those around them,” he added. “So it’s got this vicarious quality that we also do not like.”
Community members can sign the Unplugged Pledge, an anonymous form in which participants set a goal for how many hours they plan to unplug. Cornell is offering tips for reducing technology use as well as in-person alternatives throughout the week, including events at the Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art and daily gatherings on Libe Slope, the university’s landmark hill, to watch the sunset.
Jackson said the goal of Cornell Unplugged isn’t to prescribe a single approach to technology use, but to encourage students and faculty members to think more deliberately about when technology enhances learning—and when it gets in the way.
“There’s never going to be a one-size-fits-all solution, and there are certainly many and important and essential uses of technology in the learning environment,” Jackson said. “The Cornell Unplugged initiative is really about deepening that conversation about where the uses are helpful and where the uses are counterproductive or damaging to student learning.”
“It’s not anti-tech in any way,” he added. “A lot of what we do is very pro-tech. I think technology in the learning environment has enormous contributions to make, but it also needs to be done mindfully and intentionally.”
Beyond unplugging: As the initiative plays out, Cornell plans to track participation through the number of users who uphold the Unplugged Pledge and examine whether participants report changes in their technology habits afterward. The university will also monitor aggregate campus Wi-Fi usage to see whether broader patterns shift over the course of the week.
For other institutions considering similar tech-free or tech-light initiatives, Jackson said students may be more receptive to the idea than campus leaders expect.
“A lot of the students we talk to are actually quite excited about this,” Jackson said. “They recognize some of the challenges that excessive screen use brings to their learning and their everyday lives, and they’re happy for the opportunity and the collective incentive to step back from that.”
But Jackson cautioned that building healthier technology habits is more complicated than simply asking students to put down their devices, particularly as technology has become integral to how students learn, communicate and navigate college.
“It’s actually a fairly challenging concept for some people to wrap their heads around, but in my mind, it’s really essential to work out a more nuanced and complex and healthy relationship to technology across the university today,” Jackson said.
Murphy-Rendón agreed that the goal isn’t for students to abandon technology altogether, but to reconsider how and when they use it.
“We’re not promoting zero technology use, but rather getting people to reform their habits and relationships with using technology,” Murphy-Rendón said.
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