This week in her column Pick My Brain, Caitlin Brown examines a now commonplace occurrence in a college lecture—students taking notes on laptops.
It just so happened that in my morning lecture yesterday, I found myself sitting directly behind just such a student. Our professor rationalized on the first day of class that we, as bright, budding scholars, could be trusted to use our laptops for good and not evil—i.e., to use them to actually take notes and not to catch up on work, email, and our favorite Tumblrs.
This particular student, however, took few notes while spending the majority of the lecture checking her email, perusing the New York Times and casually online shopping. I was quickly sucked in by her distraction, partially because I wanted to know what was up with the Times’ video headline, and partially because I was amazed by her commitment to everything but taking notes.
