Technology too good to give up for Lent

A survey has revealed that girls would miss their mobile phones most if they were denied them for 40 days while boys would not want to live without the Internet.

The poll, which was conducted by the University of Hertfordshire in the run up to the University’s 40th anniversary of the degree in Computer Science, asked students what technology they would miss most if they had to give it up for 40 days and which would they happily live without.

Respondents were asked to indicate whether they would miss Internet, email, mobile phone, MP3 player or games console most and then asked which they would happily give up.

Over 300 students responded and findings revealed that 58% of girls could not live without their mobile phones on the grounds that it is their ‘lifeblood’ and ‘a vital means of communication with friends and family’, whereas 49% of boys could not live without the Internet which provides many with ‘information at their fingertips’.

63% of all respondents would give up their games console without any hesitation on the grounds that many of them do not own one nor feel any need to purchase one, while only 3% would miss their MP3 player.

Jill Hewitt, Head of the School of Computer Science commented: “I’m not surprised because mobility of communications and the Internet are amongst the most popular areas surveyed for our new suite of Master’s programmes which will include the title ‘Mobile Computing’.

“It is likely that in the future we will develop a virtual campus with students located around the world communicating by email, discussion groups and by ‘phone across the internet – we have already made a start with our on-line programmes, in fact we have just enrolled over 50 students from Trinidad who will be studying our degree via StudyNet, our online managed learning environment.”

The winning entry will be drawn this week and presented by Dr Vint Cerf, Chief Internet Evangelist at Google a guest speaker at Computer Science: the next 40 years which will be held at the University from 7-9pm on Monday 6 March.