​Looking up from our laptops

As accepted students from the Class of 2020 pour into Durham this month to visit campus, they look to get a taste of campus life with our bus rides, dining halls and residential dorms. Though Blue Devil Days provide prospective students with an enjoyable experience, they only provide glimpses of Duke’s academic ecosystem, especially inside classrooms. While the quality of Duke’s intellectual experience is undeniable, we believe laptops are depriving us everyday of a full educational experience. While beneficial in some settings and for some purposes, more often than not they distract us to the point where we only see portions of our classrooms in the peripheries of our laptop screens.

We recognize that laptops—and technology generally—are essential to a 21st century educational experience with MOOCs, flipped classrooms and clicker quizzes. Further, for those with illegible handwriting or who are slow writers, a day without the benefits of laptops or tablets may prove genuinely detrimental to their notetaking. Laptops undoubtedly offer a more expedient and organized alternative to traditional notetaking for many students.

However, the addictive conveniences of modern technology tend to overshadow the setbacks irresponsible laptop usage causes. Oftentimes technology oversteps its role as a supplement to education by usurping much of the human interaction we experience in a classroom setting. Multitasking in class often appeals to us as we juggle multiple classes, jobs and applications. But navigating two separate streams of information simultaneously impedes long-lasting understanding of the material. In 2003, Cornell University found laptop use in class negatively affected students’ ability to remember lecture content. Perhaps more importantly, distractions from personal computers also affects those around the laptop. A Stanford University study in 2008 reported the interference levels from others’ computers further hinder student performance in class.

As college students, we should be cognizant and take responsibility for own own decisions regarding our educational experiences. We must also recognize that disengaged students dishearten professors who find themselves by pulling teeth in asking unanswered questions during discussions. Professors ought to adopt stricter policies where appropriate to cultivate more focused, engaged classroom climates for all students. Currently unusual in the status quo, policies should totally disallow laptops usage in classrooms that do not necessitate technology, with appropriate exceptions for students in need. Small classrooms and seminars would particularly benefit from greater class participation that technology use often impedes. Larger lectures tend to bear the greatest burden of the laptop distractions, and while students ultimately must take ownership of their own learning in these settings, professors can and should help them resist temptation. By posting lecture slides after the completion of the class or providing explicit guidelines restricting laptop usage, professors can further incentivize students to avoid using technology to escape the classroom.

We urge students to adopt a laptop-free attitude outside the classroom as well. The University places us in the midst of brilliant professors, bountiful resources and incredible peers. It becomes our responsibility to step away from technology and engage with one another. A Duke experience extends beyond the classroom and encourages development in other spheres of our lives, but it starts in the classroom. Having our heads buried in laptops often detracts from not only our own academic experience and that of our peers. We should be mindful of the role of technology in our lives, good and bad alike. Technology should not dominate our interactions with one another. Shifting our gaze off the screen can help us absorb intellectually fulfilling interactions within and beyond the classroom.