On the first Tuesday of the semester, my religious studies professor announced that technology would be banned in her seminar. Two hours later, my comparative literature professor declared a similar embargo on laptops and tablets in class. Dear reader, what a breath of fresh air this is.
I came to college excited to take full advantage of my new laptop in class, and I will leave Claremont believing it doesn’t belong in the classroom.
Laptops and tablets oppose the spirit of seminar classes: personal, engaged discussion between peers. They distract not only ourselves but also each other, and discussions are weakened as a result. The point of a liberal arts education is to foster personal engagement, a space where our participation matters and is valued by the people around us. By allowing technology in seminars, we are disrespecting our material, our professors, and most importantly, each other.
The difference in the caliber of discussions in seminars with and without technology is night and day. By taking out the possibility for distraction, I find that I actually take the time to fully consider my professors’ open-ended questions. I don’t feel the urge to tune out from a longer monologue and check my texts or emails. A tech-free seminar is a less apathetic classroom: There is nothing to do but fully engage with each participant’s points, so conversation becomes uninhibited.
One study supports the conclusion that multitasking on a computer reduces attention, memory and class performance. Computers actively make the classroom a less productive space. Their incidental benefits — fact-checking, storing notes on the cloud, quicker and legible typing — do not outweigh their fundamental detriment.
I’ve learned that a seminar is an intimate space. In this trusted setting, people open up and express personal experiences and thoughts. We should do everything we can to encourage this risk-taking by treating it with the gravity it merits. Seeing other students on their screens, distracted and disinterested in discussions, discourages validating intimate comments.
Why take a personal risk for your classmates to respond with disrespect? By leaving our computers in our bags, we remove an obstacle to intimate and meaningful conversation.
My seminars without tech have generated the most meaningful discussions I’ve ever had at school. In a history course on World War II in Eastern Europe, I relied on my classmates to construct meaning out of the deeply disturbing accounts we read.
We had texts that described the futility in choices that Jewish ghettos made to delay deportation to concentration camps. I found myself wondering about the point of learning each ghetto’s choices when I knew what would happen to each one. My classmates brought back urgency, affirming the necessity of tracking those choices to humanize each community’s rationale regardless of its grizzly end. Without that empathy, I don’t know how I would have continued reading for the course.
The rise of generative AI has made technology an even greater threat to an honest classroom. Last semester, I saw a student ask ChatGPT for a chapter-by-chapter summary of the week’s reading, which he used to discuss the book the rest of us had actually read. Unfortunately for him, ChatGPT had completely invented a chapter, and he got caught. I don’t expect everybody to do the readings for every class (I know I haven’t), but we should prevent any technology that emboldens such cynical dishonesty.
Academic accommodations complicate this. Some students need technology to get the best experiences from their education, and they should. While students with academic accommodations are isolated in their computer use, the impact of an empathetic classroom becomes even more significant. Their isolation should not deter them from the spirit of making an intimate space where everyone feels they can contribute something personal and meaningful.
I’ve been very grateful to walk into my two seminars this semester with only a pen, notebook and the reading. I get to be a part of meaningful discussions that motivate me to read class materials critically. I hope other 5C students feel this appreciation for the community a seminar can forge, a community possible when we close our laptops and place nothing between us.
Elias Diwan PO ’25 is from D.C. His average screen time on his computer last week was 7.42 hours. Perhaps he should close his computer more.
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