Students find life hard without computers

Capturing the experience of going without a computer — for Magnusson it was five weeks — is part of a documentary-making course at Carleton College in Northfield, Minn. She and two other students who went on the "computer fast" are the documentary subjects; eight others took turns filming. When the documentary is finished, they plan to screen it on campus and submit it to film festivals.

Schoolwork was especially challenging without a computer, the students found. Lundin says he felt guilty when he asked for special treatment from professors, who expected him to participate in online class discussions and check e-mail for last-minute updates. Tatge says he had to cheat once to complete an assignment for his Chinese class that required the computer. All three missed out on parties and campus events because they could not check Facebook and didn't know what was going on.

Lundin says the class realized that "there is no turning back. The role of computers is steamrolling forward. You can resist it. You can hold off for a little bit. But in the end, it will keep moving forward with or without you."