Laptops have no place in the classroom — at least not in a liberal arts college where seminar learning, thoughtful discussion, close engagement and intellectual dynamism are supposed to be valued, pursued, enjoyed and experienced.
“If I don’t do all the reading for a certain class,” a senior recently said to me. “Then I sit there quietly and listen to what others have to say and my lack of preparedness doesn’t actively suck the life out of the class. But when a student is on their laptop, tapping away and working on something totally unrelated to the day’s class topic, it actively ruins the discussion. And when multiple people are doing so, it just renders the whole learning environment a joke.”
“I agree,” said her friend, a junior. “I mean, Professor X is brilliant. She’s probably my favorite professor. But I have to be honest — the fact that she allows laptops in class is a real bummer. It just destroys things. And I lowkey don’t respect her for it, because it’s like she just pretends it’s not happening when we all know it is.”
I’ve been hearing sentiments like this from students for a while now, and it has prompted the writing of this op-ed.
Any professor who allows laptops in class has little self-respect or is downright self-hating; any professor who allows laptops in class either has little veneration for whatever it is they are teaching, or actively enjoys witnessing whatever subject they claim to care about being flagrantly ignored; any professor who allows laptops in class either cares precious little for the educational environment of their students, or actually gets off watching students ignore them and each other; any professor who allows laptops in class either thinks the matter at hand deserves only a sliver of attention among competing matters, or actually wants the matter at hand to be a sideshow, playing third fiddle to TikTok. Any professor who allows laptops in class is either in deep denial about what is taking place right in front of their and everyone’s eyes, or fully enjoys such a fractured, distracted, dystopian, anti-educational, screenful hell.
Now, OK, let’s go through some of the hackneyed objections to the reasonable demand for screenless classrooms.
First off, accommodations. Some students — so the assertion goes — need to use laptops because they have certain disabilities. Horseshit. Oops — sorry. My bad. That just slipped out by mistake. Let me try again. Yes, it is both true and just that, thanks to the Americans with Disabilities Act, colleges must provide effective auxiliary aids and services to afford individuals with disabilities an equal opportunity to participate in class — though at the moment this largely means computers. But allowing every student in the class to then be on their laptop is not the solution here. And for the students who are physically or mentally unable to take notes by hand in real time, there are numerous options: their home college’s accessibility office can provide a student or professional notetaker for them; they can be provided with a writing device that uses keys but has no internet access, such as a Pomera or Freewrite Traveler; they can be provided with a reMarkable Paper Pure device; they can record lectures and have the recording digitally or manually transcribed — after the office evaluates the case and approves it.
Second, what about in-class research or assignments? Sometimes, it is claimed, professors like students to have laptops in class so that they can do in-class work, such as analyzing on-line data sets, coding, content analysis, geographical analysis or group editing. The solution here is obvious: allow laptops in class specifically when such in-class work is taking place and then have everyone put them away when such work is over. Simple.
Third, it is just so much easier to take notes on a keyboard than by hand. I agree. But the downside of allowing laptops in class clearly outweighs the upside of tapping on keys.
Students, if you don’t like what screens do to your classroom experience, if you are sick of watching individuals next to you and in front of you checking their email, working on a paper for another class, perusing Instagram, applying for internships, shopping for sweaters, bidding on eBay, messaging friends, hunting for an Airbnb, watching YouTube, doomscrolling, emailing another professor or playing video games while the works of Octavia Butler, Ibn Al-Rwandi or James Joyce are ostensibly up for analysis and discussion, or while pressing matters in physics, photography, phenomenology or philology are being unpacked, do something about it.
Tell your professors how their indulgence of laptops depletes your educational experience. Send them emails, leave anonymous notes under their doors, write a constructively critical review on RateMyProfessor about their allowing laptops in class (preferably write it while the very professor is lecturing) and be explicit about your concerns when you fill out your end-of-the semester evaluations. Ask the department chair of your major to understand your concerns and support your efforts.
If you — the students — don’t actively complain about how laptops are ruining the classroom, don’t let professors know how your respect for and appreciation of them diminishes with each new search on Amazon of you or your neighbor’s screen, and if you don’t openly demand screen-free, mindful, present, in-person education, nothing will ever be done. And you can continue to languish in the dismalness of a liberal arts education characterized by professors being ignored, your classmates rendering every academic topic a sideshow and your own intellectual acumen being deflated.
When everyone is on a laptop, attention is split, diverted and divided; engagement with ideas, theories, and evidence is evaporated; listening and reacting to each other’s thoughts and opinions are dumbed down; lectures are rendered quaint noise; and the very reason you chose to come to a liberal arts college is mocked.
Phil Zuckerman is a professor of sociology and secular studies at Pitzer College and personally has nothing against horses or their shit.
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