Backpack students talk to faculty member Colin Agur about the stories technology tells and the future of connection.
In an era when our phones serve as our cameras, wallets, newsrooms and entertainment hubs, Associate Professor Colin Agur has spent years asking the big questions: What does our relationship with personal technology and online content mean for how we live? And what comes next? From mobile phones and apps to digital games and emerging media platforms, Agur explores how these tools influence everything from work and education to social connection and leisure. His research examines not just the technology itself, but how people engage with it — and what that engagement means for society at large.
With a PhD in Communications from the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism, along with a 2016 book on “Education and Social Media,” Agur brings that same curiosity and discipline into his classroom at Hubbard. He teaches courses on digital media, mobile communication, the business of digital media and the political economy of media, challenging students to think and question how technology shapes our daily lives.
We sat down with Agur to discuss how the role of mobile media is shaping our world, his advice for following in his footsteps and why paying attention to both apps and analog media can change the way you see the world.
Backpack: How did you end up at Hubbard?
Colin Agur: I finished my PhD in New York in 2014, then took a two year postdoc in Connecticut. After that, I was looking for professor roles both around the country and internationally. Minnesota had a nice balance of things — the Twin Cities is enough of a big city, but it’s also calmer than New York. You can be out in a lake or a forest in a 15 minute drive. There’s a strong civic culture here, people are involved in lots of great organizations and there’s community. It’s the kind of place where you go to a Target and you see a whole wall of university sports gear because people feel a strong connection to the institution. So that’s how I ended up here. You go to a place in search of a job, but also in search of a way of life, and I think here there’s a healthy balance.
B: How do you approach teaching topics that are constantly changing and evolving?
CA: I try to challenge students to look backwards a bit because I think history matters, and what if they think history began last week? Well then there’s a lot they’re missing. How do you do that when moments are changing? You do that by constantly upgrading, updating your course. You use assignments as a way to push students to think critically about the present moment, not just because it’s the present moment, but what does it mean? So you’re asking to ground it in something larger. But it does mean that no two semesters are ever the same.
B: How do you see the role of mobile media shifting in the next decade?
CA: We have phones, Bluetooth, RFID, mesh networks and all these other things. So there will be many more ways of being mobile. For a long time there was a question of, “Is it mobile or not?” The new question will be, “Is anything not mobile?” What can’t we take up around on the go? It’ll be mobile devices in relation to each other, like Bluetooth wearables, syncing with apps and monitoring our body temperature and all kinds of other basics. Combining that data for good or bad, you’re able to understand people’s relationships with each other and with their physical surroundings. If you know where somebody is, who they’re with, and you know their blood pressure, sweat level and a few other things, you have a frightening level of insight into how a person feels about another person.
B: What advice would you have for students who hope to follow in your footsteps?
CA: The kind of research I do can be time-consuming. You have to spend a lot of time talking to people and listening to them, saying, “Show me how you use your phone, walk me through this.” If all you want to do is just push out publications, there are easier ways you can do it but I think it’s worthwhile to put in the effort because the quality of engagement is there. And an important part of that effort involves understanding technology in contexts. It means going places — sometimes near, sometimes far away — and doing so with humility, an open mind and respect. I’ve looked at how people use mobile technology in many different parts of the world, and I’ve learned a lot from those experiences.
Ultimately we’re trying to understand how people relate to technology. Think of how you engage with your phone: it’s a personalized interface; you decide which apps make the cut and which don’t. You interpret these apps and navigate their features. It’s deeply personal and the way to understand that is to talk to people and understand their relationships with technology. The advice I would give is to think locally but connect it to things that are global — technology is global, some apps are global, some languages are global — so explore contexts and understand the cultural aspects of technology.
B: What is your Hubbard Hot Take?
CA: I’m a huge fan of the red chairs on the first floor. It warms my heart when I walk by and I see students reading print media magazines, books and actual physical newspapers. We need lots of comfy chairs in which we can read thoughtful things.
To learn more about Colin Agur and his work, visit his CLA faculty profile.
Text by Ashaar Ali, photo by Jessica Chung, Office Hours logo by Reagan Frystak, Backpack students.