A s of March 31, 2000, ZapMe! had deployed equipment to approximately 1,800 partner schools compared to 1,250 schools as of Dec. 31, 1999, and less than 500 schools as of March 31, 1999. The student population in partner schools exceeds 1.5 million students. ( ZapMe! press release)
My son, whom I will call by his logon name Buyte15 (the 15 refers to his age), attends our neighborhood Coca-Cola High School for Budding Consumers (the institution was called Abraham Lincoln High until a few years ago when corporations realized it wasn't enough just to emblazon their brands on every billboard in sight). My son's school recently signed on as a partner of ZapMe!, a company that provides free computers and Internet hookups. The students at Coke High get to surf the Net on their free computers for four hours a day, an undoubted boon to education that widens minds and broadens research horizons for those science projects and history reports. But there's a catch. A student staring at the computer is incessantly distracted, enticed, and snared by ads. Another small quid pro quo for the free computers: ZapMe! tracks the youngsters' electronic footprints marching across the Web for possible sale to anyone hungry for data on the private wanderings of teenagers.
The other day I received a note from my son's history teacher at Coke High, informing me that my son had failed to deliver his required class paper on World War II.
''Buyte15,'' I said to my son, tossing the note down in front of him, ''please explain this.''
''Whoa, Dad. Easy, man.''
''Look, the school has fancy new computers, right? The computers come with a fantastic Web portal, right? This portal is a doorway to all kinds of facts and information, there at your fingertips. What's so difficult about finishing a class paper? ''
''Well, like, that's true, Dad. It's like this, you know: I get started working on my paper, I'm surfing around, I'm getting all sorts of good info, and then, see, I can't stop myself from sliding the cursor down to that Nintendo ad. And, you know, click and there I am in a full screen ad that's a hundred times more interesting than anything I find on World War II. So, like, I finish up with Nintendo and there's an ad for Dell computers and I'm at it again. ''
''But you're in a classroom and you have schoolwork to do.''
''I'm figuring I'll get to it. But first I take a little detour to the ZapMall.''
''Now let me get this straight: Instead of doing your school report, you spend your time shopping at a virtual mall?''
''Really cool, isn't it? And I mean I'm learning a lot of important stuff, anyway. I can tell you all about Legos, Frito Lay, and Topps baseball cards - that's gotta help me out in the real world, don't it?''
''But what about World War II?''
''Don't worry, man. Listen, I'll get back to work on it tomorrow. I've a bunch more shopping - er, researching - to do. So, like, can I keep your credit card a few more days? And, hey, gimme a hint, what's World War II, anyway?''
Steven Levingston can be reached at dollarsnonsense
@hotmail.com.
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