Have you ever met a Duke student without a laptop? Neither have I. In fact, I think you would be hard-pressed to find a student in this country who doesn’t use a computer on a regular basis. Computers have become a fundamental tool of daily life, like spoons or cars. You can get by without them, but it really sucks.
Of course we’ve all heard the rants from professors about the evils of technology and how it corrupts our minds and brainwashes us into thoughtless Facebook drones. But I think it’s important for us to recognize the position that our technology holds at a basic, unacknowledged level. It’s surprisingly easy to forget how often we use our computers to perform simple tasks.
I learned this lesson last year—the hard way. During reading period, three days before my first final, my computer crashed while I was working on a 12-page research paper. Shocked and desperate, I fled to the library. Finding the library packed, with not a single open computer in sight, I tearfully approached the grumpy residents of each study carrel, hoping for a chance to use a computer. Denied sympathy, I borrowed one of the library’s loanable laptops—which are pretty much unusable, by the way. I couldn’t even get mine to turn on—perhaps a result of my lack of tech-savvy or due to the fact that the library’s laptops are fossils from the ancient past.
And, at the worst possible time, I discovered my utter helplessness without the aid of the technology upon which I had become so dependent.
Could you find a book in the Perkins stacks without a computer? Could you hand-write a research paper? I couldn’t! When I tried, I found that everything I needed was stuck, unretrieveable, in the husk of my lifeless computer. (This leads to a valuable lesson, my friends—back up your stuff). I had to start over from scratch, days away from final exams, and I found myself unable to study in the ways to which I had grown accustomed; and with a serious impairment in my ability to perform mundane tasks like answering my emails or paying my bills.
As you can imagine, I’m now much more prepared to deal without a laptop in the unlikely event it ever fails me--which actually happened when my computer gave out for good over the weekend. I back up my hard drive every week, and I keep copies of all my class notes online. But I’m also much more aware of the role that my computer plays in my life.
If you were to ask me what my most valuable possession is, I would say it’s my laptop. Not my car, which has more objective monetary value, but my laptop. This isn’t a vain attachment to technology or a miscalculation of economic value. My computer is my most valuable possession because it contains the most important thing I have—my coursework.
Think about it—we pay up to 60 grand a year to go to Duke. When people like me use our computers for our classes, the sum total of all our notes, essays, presentations and theses are stored within these little pieces of plastic and metal. Everything I accomplish—or could accomplish—at Duke is thanks to my computer, and I can tell you right now that I know for a fact that I wouldn’t make it a week at this school if I didn’t have one.
When professors ask us to go without computers in class, they’re asking us to put away a basic tool that has become an integral part of how we navigate the modern world. It’s almost like asking us not to use one of our limbs. As a result, students like me have to find ways to integrate our technology-free learning with the studying we do on our computers. For me, this can often lead to messy binders with printed notes in the wrong order and documents that get lost or forgotten.
The irony is that these professors also rely on technology in ways that they often don’t notice. Of the professors I’ve had at Duke who asked us to go technology free, every single one of them has communicated to their students via e-mail, assigned readings on Sakai or given presentations using their own computers. Even something as ubiquitous as a typed essay comes with its own implicit use of technology. Computers’ rule over our academic lives is inescapable, even if professors try to resist it.
Of course, it’s also common knowledge that computers do have a negative effect on our abilities to study. We’ve all had that class where the professor is lecturing to a room full of people reading “10 Cats that Will Make You LOLZ.”
Somehow, computers have become the most effective way of doing work… and also the best way to be completely useless and do nothing for hours at a time. Although we rely on technology in order to do homework and get things done, it’s very effective at giving us ways to avoid doing the things we know we need to do.
It’s a double-edged sword. The computer plays a role in the millennial’s life that has never been experienced by the generations that came before us. We are in new, unexplored territory, and it’s up to us—not our professors—to find ways to use our technology in meaningful, innovative ways.
McKenna Ganz is a Trinity junior. Her column runs every other Tuesday.
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