The contradiction of digital IDs
By Sir Benjamin Treadwell · Contributing Writer
Like John Hatzis, fellow Perspectives writers and likely a majority of the student body, I argue that the college should not mandate the use of a digital Crimson Card for current students or incoming freshmen.
I am grateful to the administration for improving security by upgrading to the NFC system. They are practicing the college’s stated value of stewardship in eliminating the cost of student ID cards.
However, I have practical concerns regarding the “CrimsonCard+” (the CC+) and deeper worries about how Grove City has contradicted some of their other stated values with the decision.
First: practical concerns. If my Crimson Card is on my phone and I forget it somewhere, not only have I lost access to my dorm, but I also can’t contact my friends to let me into my dorm or bring me my ID.
If the two are separate, I have (hopefully) less of a chance of losing both — and the phone and the ID card can be used to retrieve each other. This useful diffusion vanishes if the two are combined.
Further, if someone steals my CC+ equipped phone for its value as a phone, I have more problems than just a stolen phone. If someone steals my CC+ phone to sneak into my dorm, how can I warn anyone or call Campo? The CC+ increases digital security, but it makes any breach in physical security more problematic.
Additionally, a physical Crimson Card is helpful as a form of ID for dual-enrolled students and anyone else (like a close friend of mine) who doesn’t have driver’s licenses. (I will grant this is a niche concern.) A physical card has practical benefits that, large and small, recommend it for continued use.
On a more ominous note, the mandate of the CC+ for all future students runs counter to three of Grove City College’s core values. If the college is committed to excellence, community and independence, then they should think twice before binding us to our phones.
If the college is committed to excellence, they should make it as easy as possible for students to resist the siren song of the internet. Countless studies have shown that there is a distinct correlation between phone/social media usage and decreased academic performance.
More simply: the more we use our phones, the worse we tend to perform. The CC+ will require everyone to always have their mesmerizing black mirror-brick on them, making a stupefying tech addiction harder to escape and easier to gain.
Excellence requires focus for extended periods of time. This is what smartphones steal from us. They shatter our focus with notifications and leave us wondering if there is anything going on in the digital ether that we are missing. They will not let us alone for extended periods of time, and even with notifications off, the short-form world has drastically shortened our attention spans.
CC+ would hobble everyone’s attempts to resist the effects of the phone. For the sake of student excellence, the college should not mandate the digital ID.
Second: if Grove City is committed to community, they will not require us to always carry our rectangular loneliness generators. The well-known social psychologist Jonathan Haidt has chronicled how the internet has fostered an enormous amount of social isolation, especially for the young.
Social media can connect us, but it has an undeniable tendency to reduce the in-real-life social interactions that are the core of the college’s desired community. It will be easier for genuine community to form if we are permitted to be free from our smartphones occasionally — but a required digital ID will worsen any smartphone-derived problems.
Finally: the college is going against their commitment to independence by mandating the CC+. This policy further ensnares us in the worldwide technological spiderweb.
Tech companies make money from our dependence on our phones. While Grove City College prides itself on freedom from the hard power of the federal government, if it forces the CC+ upon us, we become more vulnerable to the soft power of the mind-melting algorithms.
How can anyone unplug for respite if we can’t even get to our rooms without a phone? We already must accept the risk of missing calls, texts, emails and various notifications if we want to enjoy some time undisturbed and focused. This new security protocol tightens the digital leash. The CC+ makes us dependent on the very devices which we strive for independence from.
I wish that physical ID cards could still be included in our tuition dollars. But this is not, evidently, the will of the leaders in the TLC and Crawford.
So be it — but I ask the administration for at least this happy medium: give those of us, incoming freshmen included, willing to pay for a physical ID the chance to buy our digital liberty.
