My Laptop: A Hinderance to a WMU Education

So I’m sitting here in my class, checking Facebook, Playing Mah Jongg, and looking at other class syllabi for upcoming assignments and all the while trying to figure out what I can write my next blog about (by the way, this class I am in is not the class which requires blog entries. This is my poetry class, so I am sure you understand my distraction). And so, why am I on my laptop in one class while working on an assignment for another? But then, I look above the top of my laptop screen to catch a glimpse of my professor when I realized, four other students in my class also had there heads hidden behind laptops as well.

Out of boredom and slight curiosity I count the number of students in my “Studies in Verse” class. Today, there are 19; the class size is 28. Therefore, 5 of the 19 students are preoccupied by their laptops. Also, my boyfriend, who is sitting to my left, is eagerly sketching an elephant. The girl two rows ahead of me is inconspicuously reading a novel and another student just pulled out his giant Sudoku book. I can vaguely hear my professor’s lecture on some poem called “The Collar” because I am not only distracted by the lack of participation by many students in the class, but also my own distraction by this laptop. Then it occurred to me that this is not the first time I have noticed students (myself included) fully consumed by their laptops while sitting in class.

As much as I love having a portable computer to bring with me to campus, I fully admit that during some classes I do not have enough will power (or interest) to strictly type notes and ignore the temptations of internet browsing. I received a laptop for my high school graduation. My mother was thrilled about my collegiate future, and found it just as necessary as I did to have a laptop to enhance my educational experience. If you would have asked my mother why she thought a laptop was the necessary option she would have excitedly told you “because Western is a wireless campus”. Of course most, if not all, college campuses are now wireless, but that is beside the point. I loved my new portable device, but I did not realize how it would change, and possibly hinder, my class participation at WMU.

I first realized the popularity of laptops around WMU when I had freshman lectures with hundreds of students. Walking into the large auditorium style classroom during my first week of classes I was nervous about the amount of attention and note taking my new university classes would ensue. I began my first couple of classes taking extensive notes, and trying to pay close attention to the Freudian theories, biological phenomenon’s, and art history slides I was learning about in my classes. It only took a couple of weeks before I noticed more and more people bringing their laptops into lecture halls with them. At first I assumed, their laptops were to take faster, organized, and more efficient notes. However, when I started snooping behind shoulders at the many screens, I realized note taking was the least desirable option.

I tried sticking to my original habit of sitting near the front so I could take hard-to-decipher hand written notes and make eye contact with the professor as much as possible. But the ever growing number of laptops that were popping up around my classes became to inviting to ignore. As the weeks and months went on I began bringing my laptop more and more while moving further and further toward the back row in my lectures. My shitty hand-written note taking ability became useless as I now had my keyboard at hand. Even though my laptop provided an easier method for taking notes, the amount of notes I took became fewer and fewer. After all, I hand the internet at my finger tips. This is when the hindrance of a wireless campus became apparent to me.

Now, four years later, I look back on my years at WMU and realized that without my laptop some college classes would have seemed unbearable. They would have been Unbearable in the sense that I would not have been able to counter my boredom with internet browsing. Even though my laptop served my entertainment needs during class time, I cannot help to think of the negative impact it may have had on my education. The temptation and distraction of having a laptop on a wireless campus is incredible.

The professors have to be aware of the distraction of a laptop even though they cannot always see what is on their screens. Do they know what their students are really doing on their laptops while they are standing among them teaching? Do the professors know that sometimes students are catching up on episodes of Family Guy while taking up space in their classroom? Or that fact that students are more interested in looking through the drunken pictures of their friends on Facebook than learning about poetic forms or chemical structures?

I am sure most professors are aware of the possibility. But after all, this is college, and we are adults so it is our responsibility to focus in our classes. Then why do students even bother going to class if they are not going to pay attention? You can check your Facebook or Myspace at home, even just go to the library, right? Well I cannot speak for everyone but I bring my laptop with full intention of taking notes. However, on the occasion where I find myself so completely bored with the goings on in class, the surfing is inevitable.

One may assume that students mainly abuse the wireless campus privileges in large lecture classes, where they can get far back from the professor making there lack of participation less noticeable. In these classes it is easier to be inconspicuous and pretend like you are eagerly taking notes rather than Facebook stalking. However, throughout my four years the consistency of laptop users has increased and overflowed into even the smallest most intimate classes. Now, here I sit, in my class of 19 distracted by the unnecessary internet surfing and Facebooking that other screens surrounding me illustrate.