Luddite Postscript

Are you around my age? In your late thirties? Know anyone in their mid twenties? Here's how you can blow their mind: tell them that when you were in college, cell phones and the internet didn't exist. You wrote letters by hand on paper and mailed them to your friends. You talked on phones with chords in your dorm rooms. If you were out and needed to reach somebody, you found a quarter and a pay phone and made a call. When you did research, you went to the library, talked to librarians, and found sources by actually touching card catalogs and books and magazines.

I haven't been a full-time college student for fifteen years. Now I am. One big difference is that people can bring laptops into class. I don't think laptops even existed when I was in undergrad, so in the early 90s there was nothing but people, notebooks, and pens and pencils in a classroom. Now you can come to class with a laptop. As the professor talks and the discussion ensues, you hear the low rumbling of fingers on keyboards.

And I don't really like it. In my Arts in Education class about 10 of the 50 students bring their laptops. As the class proceeds, if you glance at them you see the glow of their computers on their faces. And if I think of those 10 students in particular, it seems like they are never really in the class. When they raise their hand to ask a question, I always think "oh, right, you're in here." Or when they speak it seems like they just stepped in the door. Somehow those with pens and notebooks are more present, have been more on task, have been more connected to the room. Us computerless folks haven't thrown up a barrier between ourselves and the goings on.

Sometimes I sit behind the students who bring their laptops, and I always see what I thought I'd see. They have three or four windows open, they check facebook, play games, and sometimes take some notes. Exactly what I would do if I'd brought my laptop. Which is why I don't.