Cornell University president Elizabeth Garrett isn't thrilled with students sleeping less and less these days, and wants to see that trend turn around.
As she tells the Huffington Post, "I always worry about them because you deal better with things when you're rested and have a sense of balance and good judgment."
I assume everyone at Cornell must be an insomniac, because otherwise they'd have the good judgment not to go to Cornell, amiright?? (((rim-shot!)))
Studies show that people who drastically sleep less than they should tend to be more at risk for depression, risky behaviors, and memory loss. So Garrett has some advice for incoming freshman.
"Don't be constantly looking at your cell phone, or listening to things, and interact with your colleagues face to face in real time," Garrett tells HuffPo, "because you can't replicate the kinds of engagement that you have in a group of people sitting around watching each other's facial expressions."
Like the facial expression of disappointment when you realize you attend Cornell.
Alas, I assume this is what every incoming freshman at Cornell looks like:
Real time? What is real time? Is there fake time? Real time is one of those silly phrases that people use that doesn't actually mean anything--and this is coming from an individual running an Ivy League institution. She probably means in person, at that moment. Otherwise, Garrett is dipping into the human construct of what time actually is, a rationalization of existence broken into measured units. That's a philosophical debate I didn't see happening when talking about sleep.
And "listening to things"? Listening to what? Does Garrett mean an iPod? A fan in order to have white noise? Or am I staring at my couch and hoping it will talk to me? Because these are all things, but they all suggest different levels of mental health. Specificity would help so we all knew what she meant.
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