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Is the calendar dead and buried?

By | July 7, 2010, 3:42pm PDT

Summary: The calendar has taken many forms since mobile devices hit popular culture in the last two decades. But have students forgotten the values of keeping on track and up to date?

Sometimes it takes a good knock on the head to see certain things that have been staring you in the face for days, weeks, months or even years.

Do you know how I remember to get things done? Honestly, I write things on my left hand in pen, usually for short-term memory such as picking up milk, cat food and suchlike. But, more often than not my BlackBerry buzzes and alerts me to an imminent house party or a meeting I totally forgot about.

But it’s not through my own efforts to remember to attend an event by inputting manually the time, date and place into my phone’s calendar. Facebook does it for me, as does Outlook and other services that I use; all over the air and sync’d automatically to remind me to be somewhere and do something (and on occasion, be someone else).

With social networks being widely populated and capitalised with events and the broad access to such through mobile device applications, events along with contacts, email and media are being pushed over the air.

Though, only a few moments ago when speaking to a press relations person, only just out of university herself, she carries a physical calendar with her as though to write something down commits it to memory. Many others though, including myself do not, thus resorting to our phones and electronic calendars to tell us where to go and what to do.

The calendar seems to be a thing of the past for the current generation of students. Yet important as it is to maintain a schedule and planning for future events, to input and maintain a calendar on the go just isn’t seen all that often nowadays, with the occasional exception of very few.

Has the mobile calendar been long forgotten by today’s students?

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Topics

Zack Whittaker, a criminologist who studied at the University of Kent, Canterbury, is a journalist, writer and broadcaster.

Disclosure

Zack Whittaker

I worked briefly with Microsoft UK in 2006 but no longer have any connection with the company. Regardless, I remain impartial and unbiased in my views.

I don't hold any stock or shares, investments or industrial secrets in any company, but have signed confidentiality agreements with a number of UK and U.S. organisations, whose names I am not at liberty to disclose.

I was involved with Kent Union, the University of Kent's student union, undertaking voluntary, non-salaried, elected positions between early 2009 and mid-2010.

No other company, body, government department, non-governmental organisation or third sector organisation employs me or pays me a salary in any capacity whatsoever.

As a freelance journalist, whenever expenses are given and taken by a company that is not CBS Interactive, these will be disclosed in each relevant post to ensure transparency.

I currently work with a UK law enforcement unit, but this is an entirely separate position which bears no connection to other work.

(Updated: 23rd October 2011)

Biography

Zack Whittaker

Zack Whittaker, criminologist who studied at the University of Kent, UK, is a journalist, writer and broadcaster.

After studying criminology at university, though still in his early-20's, he has already had a series unconventional work and voluntary positions. He has worked with researchers studying neurological illnesses like Tourette's syndrome (which he suffers from), has given lectures on the nature of disabilities in the public community, and occasionally ends up speaking on television and radio discussing the events of the day.

He first had academic work published at the age of 22, then still an undergraduate, and has been cited by a wide range of publications: from the Huffington Post, Business Insider, AllThingsDigital, The Atlantic Wire and CBS News.

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RE: Is the calendar dead and buried?
FAULKNE 13th Oct
Good day to confirm this comment I would appreciate T h e b e s t o f Z D N e t d e l i v e r e d your website very nice to everyone Yes, Oracle is the only one with shared-disk architecture, but that is there advantage. It means you can add or remove nodes and the database lives on. In a shared nothing architecture, if you lose a node, you lose the system. I'm sure Oracle appreciates EMC highlighting their advantage.I also desire to signal in your RSS feeds. Thank you as soon as once again and maintain up the great operate Awesome post! Thank you very much || thanks for nice content this is really benefit to me.
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Great... a generation of slackers
troj65 8th Jul 2010
Really, dead?!?... Just what we need, an entire generation of people who cannot complete a task on time, or arrive to an event on time. All because they don't use the tools?

It doesn't matter if you have a paper calendar, a Blackberry, any other smartphone, or your left hand, to note your appointments. Use the tool.
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I judge the performance of this article is actually superior one. This is my rank travel to your situation. Thanks a lot and donjon distribution the accumulation. Donjon updating the substance for all of us. Thanks ZDNet Government was launched as the call's prototypal manufacture upright, with a assignment to cater to IT professionals in the public secto I concur with your spot. Withal, do you person any sources I can cite for my report
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RE: Is the calendar dead and buried?
brucegil@... Updated - 8th Jul 2010
I used a Daytimer for 20 years, but gave it up several years ago when I got my first PDA. I use Outlook at work and at home and my PDA (okay, I'm a Luddite) keeps them in sync. IF you set reminders, the PDA/smartphone does a better job of alerting you to upcoming events than a paper calendar. You're less likely to lose your phone than your paper calendar (just ask my wife who still uses a paper calendar). Both are tools that have to be used, and used correctly and consistenly, to be useful.

Having a child who is a young adult now, my observation is that young people make plans but then cancel or change them on a whim if something "better" comes along. The problem is not which way to maintain a schedule of events, but understanding the responsibility to make -- and keep -- commitments and obligations.
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RE: Is the calendar dead and buried?
robert.rohr@... 8th Jul 2010
I love the reminder capability of electronic calendars via mail or mobile devices, but I wish it were easier to set multiple level reminders for a single event.

For instance: My calendar has a committee meeting for a certain day/time. It would be nice to be pinged when agendas are due, when I need to email the committee members, when to get into the car to go to the meeting, and again when the minutes are due.

Or: I have an annual conference I regularly attend. I could use a reminder when registration opens, getting a hotel room, when to start watching airfares for particularly good deals, when to pack, when to hop on the plane(s), when to get my summary report started and submitted.

There are many types of appointments that would benefit from multilevel reminders, and logging each one separately yields a cluttered calendary mess.

I'm still searching for the optimal electronic calendaring device, and thought that the vision of the ill-fated Courier team at Microsoft came closest to meeting my immediate needs. The Libretto W100 is close, but the full OS will eat battery life for breakfast, it doesn't seem to have 3G/4G connectivity, and it doesn't have high resolution stylus/tablet style input, so it won't be a particularly effective electronic day planner replacement.

Hope springs eternal.
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RE: Is the calendar dead and buried?
edgyontherocks 8th Jul 2010
For me, it's a digital/analog conundrum. Can't beat a digital watch for telling you what time it is NOW, but an analog watch with the hands gives you a different perspective of the relationship of NOW to a half-hour ago, or two hours from NOW. I feel the same way about calendars. I don't like how much I have to spend each month to support my electronic dependence on computer assisted time keepers.

Oddly, my 28 year old engineer son doesn't wear a watch (analog or digital) and really doesn't seem to know what he's doing next week, much less in three months from now.
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Not hardly, just because certain fools do not use calendars effectively (including the author apparently) does not mean they should be eliminated. Everyone should be able to remember what they have to do that day. Our various devices help us do them on time. But we must develop the ability to know what we have to do that day. If you can't, see a doctor or reduce your workload.
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RE: Is the calendar dead and buried?
prof.ebral 8th Jul 2010
Just being reborn on my Linux. I am integrating Evolution into my daily life and looking at getting a ScheduleWorld subscription so I can sync my tasks, appointments, memos, contacts .. the cool stuff that Evolution allows.
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RE: Is the calendar dead and buried?
tjstillman 8th Jul 2010
I would have thought that with all the devices out there, students would be better-equipped to be organized. NOT! I hand out the syllabus every semester and tell them to record those important dates somewhere. Two weeks later: "when's the final?" "when's the next quiz" "when's the homework due?" Grrr! This past semester, I got their attention and told them about this wonderful device. I then proceeded to draw a rectangle with smaller boxes and numbers. The smart ones figured I was using a calendar. I think kids today are so over-scheduled by their parents that the children have become too reliant on mom and dad.
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Students probably remember their schedule...
Snooki_smoosh_smoosh 8th Jul 2010
Pretty easily. I know that classes were not something I needed to insert into my calendar.

Using and maintaining a calendar is important, especially for someone entering the workplace. An employer needs to know how you the potential employee is going to manage your time, keep deadlines, and make it to meetings on time.

I in fact keep two calendars. My work calendar, running on our on premise Exchange server, which tracks all of my work related tasks, meetings, deadlines and so on. My personal one, Google Calendar, which tracks my appointments, appointments for children, the wife, school events, birthdays, and so on.

I track both calendars on either my work/home computers, and on my iPod Touch. Smartphones and smart devices, like my iPod Touch, with their ability to connect to services like Google Calendar or and Exchange Server make it really easy to ensure that you can access your calendar(s) from anywhere, make them accessible to people who need to see them, and keep them up to date, even while you are out and about.

I even use mind managers to handle advance task planning. Still looking for one that would integrate well within calendaring programs, but they are a useful tool as well. Many of them integrate well with Project management software, and some even have gantt charting built in.

Every interview I have ever been in, I have always been asked how I manage my time, and tasks. This is a very important question. I always point to keeping a calendar and using tools like mind mapping software. It is simple, if you cannot demonstrate that you can manage your time efficiently, and have some kind of planning involved, that is tangible employers are going to send you to the reject pile.

And no Facebook does not count. If a college grad came to an interview and answered that question with Facebook as his answer, I would laugh, and then tell him the interview is over. Problem with Facebook as the answer, is first, you are not Facebook'ing on company time, and second, you are not advertising company information on FB.

So when going to an interview I would suggest that students find some form of calendar, Electronic, Date Planner, Smartphone, PDA, something, and start getting into the habit of managing appointments, and tasks in it. This way when asked that question they can point to their calendar, and say I use this "enter method" to track all of my major appointments, and that while working for "company" I would use either the calendaring system provided by the company, or manage a date planner, or smartphone whatever, to track deadlines, meetings, appointments, and tasks.

If students are not learning to uses these tools, it is because the instructors are not making it a point that they should be learning to track these things. Being 18yo or so, they may not need to track a whole lot, but going into adulthood, where responsibilities pile up fast, they should have a method in place to manage them. It took me a few years to learn that. I have been managing a calendar for well over three years now, since I entered the IT field.
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RE: Is the calendar dead and buried?
SkaldedKat 8th Jul 2010
I think this points out one of the failings of the 'now' generation. Imagine one of them as (say) a bus driver. Would they stick to a timetable? Not &$%$@$ likely! Everything seems to be about 'me'. Why don't they try to be rsponsible and 'keep' appointments, instead of playing this 'I've got more appointments than you!' game?
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RE: Is the calendar dead and buried?
luxsphinx@... 8th Jul 2010
Technically a 'digital calendar' is still a calendar. PDAs, smartphones, and so forth have not killed the calendar, they are the calendar. Perhaps paper-based calendars are nearing an end (which I doubt since I see them in offices and stores quite often), but not the calendars themselves. Just because it has gone digital does not mean that the tool itself is dead. That would be like saying books are dead if ebooks become the standard - ebooks are simply books in a slightly different format.
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RE: Is the calendar dead and buried?
leyshon@... 10th Jul 2010
I may be a luddite but --- I use a non-electronic (paper) diary which I carry with me always. It has great advantages: instant on; no batteries to go dead; very quick search capabilities and advance warnings (just look on the next page); easy add and erasure; permanent record of past events; etc.
I'm sure that if paper diaries and pencils (pens) had been invented after electronic devices, they would have been hailed as the greatest inventions since sliced bread.
Sometimes what seems to be a step forward is actually twop steps backward (digital watches??)
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We're not all like this...
Mistyranch Updated - 13th Jul 2010
Okay - being one of those "now" generations (I'm 25) I'd like to point out that not all of us are late, non-calender using morons. In fact, I make it a point to carry a paper calender in my purse and I also have my blackberry sync'd to google calender for appts my boyfriend wants me to know about. I'm also 15-30min early for almost everything I do. So before you judge us as one large clump of useless - remember we're not all like that.
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