This concept of how randomness affects social interaction is crucial to understanding how people socialize and interact. It also may allow us to understand the recent epidemic of loneliness in the United States.“Young adults suffer high rates of both loneliness and anxiety and depression,” explains the Harvard Graduate School of Education in an article published with the Making Caring Common Project “According to a recent CDC survey, 63 percent of this age group are suffering significant symptoms of anxiety or depression.” 

If I were to pinpoint a factor for this increase in loneliness and lack of mental well-being, I would put it squarely upon individual convenience and the design of modern society. Processes that promote individual convenience make time consuming tasks easier but, in doing so, often isolate us. An example of this would be driving a car as opposed to taking the train. When you drive, you operate as an individual. If you drive to work, it is unlikely that you will bump into another person and strike up a conversation during your commute, or even be in the vicinity of another person for an extended period of time. On the other hand, taking the train, or any other public transport, is communal. While on the train, you occupy the same space as strangers for an extended period of time. You are forced to have random interactions and, as such, are afforded more opportunities to be social.

This phenomenon can be seen clearly on campus. The places where the most interaction between strangers happens are gathering places like Wilder Hall or Mudd Center. I’ve noticed these communal spaces reduced this year. The new system in the Rathskeller is one example. Last year, students were forced to wait together in a physical line to order and receive their food. Now, you just order on the app. I met at least four people who I would now consider friends while waiting in line last year. This type of interaction can no longer occur.

If the number of people who congregate is reduced, less people interact by happenstance. I feel this type of interaction is vital to an interactive social landscape. I believe that such a landscape would entail an environment where people are constantly in the presence of others, which, by the nature of statistics and the aforementioned randomness, will have people interact, forming new ties and bonds. 

If we were to incentivize these interactions and, more importantly, this kind of environment, then we would begin to see this epidemic of loneliness shrink. We can accomplish this by taking measures to make sure students have as many opportunities as possible to cross paths with one another. I propose that more action be taken by the College to incentivize students to leave their rooms, to go out in the world, and participate in events. Action does not need to be conducted by the College alone, as students play a crucial role in reviving our campus’s social atmosphere; this concept of randomness only works if there is someone to sit next to in the first place.

This is why I propose that the College should be allowing more freedom in the breadth of events possible on campus. This could be done by loosening the red tape involved with hosting an event and increasing awareness among students about how to host sevents. On the other hand, students should be working to bring their already planned events into the limelight and introduce new ones. To garner this amount of interest, I argue that outdoor events are crucial. The only places where students consistently need to go are to class and to buildings like Wilder or Mudd. However, once someone is inside of those buildings, they are less likely to get sidetracked by events. If you are walking through the hallway of King Building and someone is hosting a major event in a room, you most likely will not go in there. Hence, I believe that there should be outdoor stalls and other eye-catching affairs happening regularly. A prime example of what this could look like is the club fair earlier in the year. Personally, despite wanting to work on some homework in Mudd, I got sidetracked and ended up going from table to table, meeting people, and signing up for clubs that seemed interesting. Events like these pull people’s interest and allow for social connections to be formed. A large enough jumpstart, on both ends, from students and the College could begin a chain reaction, bringing more people out of their rooms into public spaces, creating more events and interactions, and bringing more people out. This could repeat and repeat until we have fully repaired our social ecosystem, bringing it back to where it once was, and maybe even beyond that. 

I benefit significantly from such exclusive intellectual activities. Yet, despite all I have to gain, I am a fervent advocate against the gatekeeping of such knowledge. I believe that intellectualism, the use of jargon, and other forms of doublespeak within academia is a detriment to the field of education as a whole.

 In my life, the places where I have learned the most have not been inside of a classroom or within the confines of a textbook’s required reading. I have learned the most from second-hand experiences, tutors, YouTubers, and casual conversations with friends. 

Getting immersed in the murky rivers and streams wherein knowledge flows is a confusing and tiresome process. The second-hand method of learning avoids this murkiness and ends up sticking better within the brains of its recipients. Hearing someone who knows original information distill it down into consumable chunks allows for more clean understanding. When talking with friends about a topic you hold passionate in your heart, you do not give them all the little ruffles of nuance and confusion. You explain it in the most layman, simple terms possible. I have spent a good deal of time arguing about politics, policies, and pieces of media over the past year, most of which happened within the Mary Church Terrell Main Library. In every discussion, when a new concept is introduced into the conversation, the person who brought it up explains it plainly. If I were in a class, I would have to sit through eight classes worth of fluff to actually understand the concept. The worst part of this process is finding out that the concept can be summarized in a sentence or less. 

A perfect example of this is, when I was studying philosophy in high school, we learned about a concept created by philosopher John Rawls called the “Veil of Ignorance.” The subject initially interested me until we spent two weeks covering every single nuance of the theory, wading through the muck of intellectualism. Only afterward did we learn that the “Veil of Ignorance” is a philosophical shorthand for not knowing your personal standing when judging a situation. Using an analogy, it is making a decision, like dividing land between two countries, knowing you will be a citizen of one of those countries but not knowing which one. 

I personally believe that the extreme formality and exclusivity of intellectualism robs us of the ability to have a good conversation. It makes sure that the only people you could talk to who would understand your point are your academic peers. This process withholds information from the public, as the barrier to entry is expanded further by the need to learn the vocabulary of shorthand terms within that profession.

There is also the larger, more personally aggravating part of academia: the attitude. Here, I refer to the “holier than thou” outlook that people with knowledge use to put down those who have not jumped through the same academic hoops. These are the same people who keep inefficient learning models and traditions simply for the sake of prestige. This exclusivity is the reason higher education in America is currently seen as a privilege and not a right. It is regarded as a place for big thinkers and dreamers daring to warp society for better or worse. Knowledge should be shared freely, in a simple, understandable manner of speaking. Meaningless social norms, like professionalism and the feeling of self-importance, grinds new understanding to dust within the collegiate setting.

I have not been at Oberlin long, yet my point still holds true. The places where I learn the most are in libraries or dining halls, in dorms or out walking through the Arboretum. I learn and debate over Dominos at two in the morning, discussing geopolitical issues, using personal experiences and opinions as my resource. The classes where I learn the most are the ones where the professor teaches casually, casting aside status. The classes where I struggle most are those where lectures are one-sided conversations, interaction is unnecessary, and the air is thick with intellectualism.

I do not blame the professor who teaches like how they learned, replicating their graduate school professor’s style. I blame the arrogance of a system that leaves professors without the most important skill: how to teach. This system is so suffocated, so focused on status and prestige that learning makes the recipient forget what it was like to be the learner, that makes them view casual experiences as low-class and unprofessional while those very experiences are what ignited curiosity within the young professor in the first place!

The main takeaway I want to give in this hypocritically long and complicated article is that you should talk with your peers. Share your interests, and don’t worry about any academic minutiae or restrictions. We, as a collective, need to abandon our intellectualism. We should swear, curse, stutter, and murmur as we please! Only when having fun and enjoying something will we be able to learn it.