Harvard University professor John Palfrey spoke in Taipei this week on the subjects of youth and contemporary media, the digital age, and parenting. I read the news on his lecture with care. I am the type of person who more or less flies into a panic attack at the mere mention of computer related phenomena.

I am so bad off that I need a secretary's patient help to upload course syllabi, to update a department web site, to figure out how to make a flat disc make photos appear on my computer screen, to plug into an on-line recommendation letter system, and so on down the line. Indicative of my character is the fact that it took me three years to learn how to say 'digital camera' in Mandarin (Not that I own one, of course. My trusty box camera is still going strong).

In other words, if I were the father of a teenager, Professor Palfrey's talk would have been perfect for me. He reportedly urged parents not to fear the Internet or uploading and downloading or the whole kit and caboodle of early 21st century communication into which (Heidegger sure was right) we have been thrown. The good professor advised parents to ask their children how to jump on board all this stuff. Make teachers of your children, ask them questions so that you can learn how to use all this scary paraphernalia, was his pitch.

For years I have felt my students are what God gave me for children in life. I sometimes do ask them for help. I should ask them more often.

A quote from a news report on the lecture has me only slightly worried.

"(Palfrey) said it is down to parents and schools to determine which life skills - human interaction, argument making, [or] analysis - children should develop. Digital content can be a powerful tool to support those goals..."

I am assuming the professor did not smack a meat cleaver down between those three skills and chop them completely apart from one another. Surely knowing how to relate with others, how to argue logically and civilly, and how to analyze are the most basic of skills for all of us, regardless of our age or station in life.

I would like to put in a word for the first skill, human interaction. If you asked me for a single deficiency from which I feel many college students suffer these days, my answer would be self-knowledge and an understanding of how their words and actions affect others. That may be another way to speak of 'EQ,' or 'emotional quotient.' EQ may be out of fashion now as a term, but it still makes a lot of sense to me.

If 'IQ' designates a student's intellectual quotient, which is to say his or her ability to grasp and express ideas and to know how to put knowledge to good use, why can't EQ point to people's understanding of themselves and their impact on those around them?

When I was a department chair, I tried to make special time for student leaders because I knew they had a tough job to do. Getting their peers to support the most reasonable of 'Student Association' requests to volunteer to help with activities, to pay a few dollars to keep the wheels turning, or to run for election to leadership positions can be gargantuan tasks. My students mean everything to me in life, and I enjoy being with them. Still, I have to say that many of them are not very good at the art of compromise, at negotiating, at forgiving each other when feelings get hurt, at working toward consensus, at viewing a situation, not through their eyes and feelings alone, but through those of another. Those skills are absolutely essential for happiness and success in life.

I occasionally hear people criticize students for spending too much time in front of their computers. I have no problem with time before a computer screen. I sometimes do wonder, however, if too many of our young friends are overly computer literate, even as they are starving inwardly from loneliness and alienation. How many college students in Taiwan are more adept at Internet use and software than they are at human relationships? Too many, I am afraid.

Father Daniel J. Bauer SVD is a priest and associate professor in the English Department at Fu Jen Catholic University. For updates on future column topics, tune into Rick Monday and ICRT radio on Thursdays at 9:05 a.m.

This story was first published in The China Post on 14 December 2008.