For a Friend?

On the eve of Housing Day, the College is abuzz with House spirit—but largely in the form of buzzing smartphones as students receive videos and emails advertising the superiority of each House over all the others. This speaks to the nature of community at Harvard; on a campus of busy people, we often socialize more over our virtual social network than our real ones.

But during these anxious days for freshmen and House communities alike, emails with content directed specifically at the recipient are exciting to say the least, and almost refreshing among the stock-brand event spam that crowds email lists during the rest of the year. Open email lists have been regrettably diverted away from their use as a community forum due to the inundation of event notifications which often translate to recipients as self-promotion rather than personal invitations. Although event spam may seem innocuous, its presence on our House email lists indicates a larger problem with the way undergraduates treat their House communities over the course of the year. Students should bring the positive spirit of Housing Day past Mar. 10 by respecting and dedicating themselves to using House email lists as community-building forums rather than as publicity platforms.

Houses are an excellent structural conduit for community-building across academic and extra-curricular interests. They unite a random selection of students who may have nothing in common besides their shared House identity. As we have said before, the House system is the best social tool the College has in fostering the healthy sense of community that is lacking from campus culture. Moreover, an important facet of this culture is the open email list, which ideally serves as a house-wide forum for discussion, advice, and debate. At this point, however, many open email lists are used for one-way publicizing rather than for dialectical and personal communication. How many students categorically delete, digest, or sort House emails into a separate category rather than carefully reading and processing each email as it comes out? The entire credibility of open email lists as a dynamic and reciprocal forum should not be undermined because of the promotional tendencies of its constituents.

In one sense, the problem finds its root in the decentralized nature of events notification on campus. While Harvard has the Gazette Events Calendar and the CS50 events calendar, event spam on email lists still thrives, suggesting that students appreciate email reminders above all else—a strong hypothesis in the age of smartphones. Why does Harvard not have a centralized notification system like Brown’s Morning Mail service, which sends out a list of all the happenings on campus in one daily email? The service is optional and can be pared down by the recipient to his or her desired group affiliation, such as year or academic interest, rather than CS50’s designation of whether the event has “Free Food” or not. Institutionalizing such a service would help reduce the stress level of students by simplifying their inboxes and helping them calmly approach which events seem of interest to them. An events calendar that is universal, unified, and regular will free up virtual social space for the more important task of building interpersonal ties.

But in another sense, the problem lies with the attitude students have toward their Houses. Viewing House open lists as a publicity forum reflects the deplorable mentality that one’s fellow undergraduates are each an opportunity for one more filled chair at a lecture or seminar, rather than for a new friendship. We should value our local communities more and see past the day-to-day game of making our individual events successful. In this vein, while enforcing any severe restriction on events spam on email lists would be difficult if not impossible, it is up to every student to help reduce this phenomenon both by sending out fewer event notifications and by contributing to productive discussions on open email lists.

Although it may seem silly to take the role of email so seriously, the reality is that it plays an outsized role in our lives. Therefore, we must take just as much care in maintaining the healthy and constructive nature of our virtual social networks as we do our real-life ones. The Houses have a great deal of potential to make the Harvard social experience a better one, but only if we invest in them—both in person and online.