Robert Putnam to the White Courtesy Phone

Via Inside Higher Ed, a story about a unique attempt to address student problems at the Indian Institute of Technology in Mumbai:

One of India's top engineering schools has restricted Internet access in its hostels, saying addiction to surfing, gaming and blogging was affecting students' performance, making them reclusive and even suicidal.

Authorities at the elite Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) in Mumbai said students had stopped socializing and many were late for morning classes or slept through them.

Accordingly, the Internet access will be completely cut off from 11pm-12:30 am every night, to encourage students to go to bed early, or at least get out of their rooms and talk to other students.

That seems a little extreme, but I can sort of understand the impulse...

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I went to a boarding school for part of highschool; our bedtime was technically 11pm, and the internet was shut off between 12am and 6am. It was a pretty good incentive to either go to bed or to finally get moving on that paper/math project. It's easy to justify totalitarian (haha) actions against teenagers in dorms, but even in my mid-twenties I lack the self-control to avoid the 1am internet browsing that makes me groggy at work.

Either put a brothel on campus or let the porn flow. They're males, they're de facto celibate, and they are imploding with horniness. Given them reason to live. Cf: Mythbusters teaching an old dog new tricks. The enthusiastically vicious guard dog was trivially neutralized.