Can I have your half-attention, please?
Profs say laptops are creating culture of 'constant partial distraction'
However, a 2007 study at Winona State University in Minnesota found that laptops can hurt lecture-based learning. Comparing a group of students with laptops to another without, it found computer use in class equated to weaker understanding of course material and lower performance. With 81 per cent of students checking their email, along with 68 per cent instant messaging and 43 per cent on the Internet, an average of 20 minutes in every 75-minute class was spent on non-course-related material. Which may explain why students with computers received grades that were, on average, five per cent lower.
Linda Stone, a former Microsoft executive and lecturer at Maryland’s Towson University, has dubbed this trying-to-do-everything-at-once phenomenon “continuous partial attention.” Sitting in class with a networked laptop, people are constantly afraid they might miss something important, somewhere. That leads to high levels of stress, and an inability to give their undivided attention to any one thing. According to some cognitive researchers, this can have negative effects on long-term memory and problem-solving abilities.
Many universities are nevertheless making laptops mandatory for students. Schools and programs requiring portable computers include Acadia University, the University of Western Ontario’s Richard Ivey School of Business, the University of Ontario Institute of Technology, the University of Ottawa’s medical school and Ryerson University’s technology management program.
In Richard Smith’s communications class at Simon Fraser, only two out of about 90 students don’t have a laptop. A third of them typically bring the computers to class. “Listen, I’m not going to walk around, looking over people’s shoulders,” says Smith, adding that even before laptops students would still “zone out.” Plus, he says it’s easy to spot people who aren’t actually paying attention.
“Professors usually know which students are chatting or on Facebook,” says Smith. “But they’re grownups. They should be making these decisions on their own.”
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My experience is just the opposite: I am a humanities/social sciences grad. My first two years were spent laptop-free, trying (sometimes desperately) to pay attention to the prof and keep up with note-taking, often getting a hand cramp as a result. If I was able to stay awake and alert, I was writing, scribbling, going back and forth between books and texts and notes and trying to figure out what was where.
In my final two years, which were much more academically challenging, I had the luxury of a laptop. Suddenly, my notes were more cohesive and comprehensive, because I type roughly five times faster than I write. I didn’t get a hand cramp. I had five seconds to actually hear what the professor was saying. I had the ability to digest the material – see it, hear it, and type it out. The simple (though pricey) posession of a laptop meant I was more organized.
My grades were roughly 15% higher in third and fourth year than my first two years. And yes, I was rarely “just taking notes” on my laptop. I’ll admit I engaged in a game or two of solitare and some IM while in class. It’s incredible what little some professors have to say that isn’t already in the reading materials they assign. Others, if I wasn’t paying full attention to my typing I’d miss as much as if I had to hand-write my notes. But that’s a lesson I learned quickly; I can’t speak for others.
Let’s leave aside that for those in the humanities and social sciences (at least), so much of one’s grade is decided by activities that are pursued outside the classroom. Lectures – while I would never advocate intentionally missing them – are just a piece of the puzzle.
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