Laptop In School: Helpful or Harmful?

Picture courtesy of Asus.com

4:20 p.m on a Friday, and at last, class is over! While I'm glad that I can at finally go back to my dorm and spend the rest of the day relaxing, doing homework, and maybe spend a while hanging out with some of my friends, I can't help but notice that class never seems to be long enough. "Alright class, go home, work on your next assignment, and I will email you a list of what needs to be done for next class". A phrase I have heard countless times since I started my college career in August of 2011. The whole situation just makes me ask myself "How on earth would we get everything done in this crazy world we have today without email, and our trusty laptops, allowing us to do homework and check email on the go?" Having laptops in college has just made everything simpler, right? Well the answer to that question is pretty subjective, because while the academic world requiring laptops can help greatly supplement our educations, there are also problems such as failure to send out emails, many times requiring students to be in a place with a outlet and an internet connection, and some may argue that sending out emails may confuse information. So really, when you think about it, have laptops made life in college simpler?

As a student at the University of Oklahoma, I have had many experiences so far with laptops being integrated with our normal classroom experiences, and I must admit that at first glance I thought that it was just the perfect way to do things; learn what we need to in class, get our assignment, and maybe in between calculus and english class,you can get your chemistry homework done! If you have questions, it's as simple as powering up your laptop and emailing a professor, and when they have a chance, they will let you know what to do! But imagine this: It's 9:20 p.m. on a Friday, you have your english essay due into the dropbox by midnight, and you've been working for a few hours when all of a sudden - bam - you lose power, and your internet goes out. Sure you have a while on battery to type the rest out, but how are you going to turn it in? This is part of where I feel there is a problem.

As part of my Regents Scholarship(earned by receiving a total sum score of 134 or higher on the ACT, or in the 99.5th percentile), I received a $1500 laptop stipend, and with that I bought the best laptop I could find. Since I bought it I have done plenty of essays on it, studied for class on it, kept in contact with my professors on it, and even found a website to help me schedule my classes. When everything goes as planned and I use my laptop for scholarly purposes, it helps me increase my productivity by easily two-fold. There's something magical about having entire libraries of articles, videos, and guides at your fingertips that helps get things done. Having a laptop, sitting in the Union, my first instinct is to go to Facebook and check my wall. With so many distractions possible on a laptop, it can be hard to focus on work. Being in the middle of an essay, following your train of thought, when suddenly you hear the familiar "bedoop" of receiving a Facebook message, easily pulls you out of the moment.

While having a laptop to help with class is great, with being able to communicate with your professors, do homework, find resources to better learn material you may not understand, and more, there are also downsides that complicate the issue of if they make the college life simpler. Before laptops were widely used, colleges worked just fine. Students would come to class, learn, do their homework, and come back next class period. Since laptops have been introduced, professors can keep in contact with students at all hours, but is it an effective communication? With distractions such as Facebook, games, and the like, risk of not having power or internet, and not to mention the chance that the laptop could break during the semester, it feels like a risk. Are these minor problems enough to offset the benefit of laptops? In the academic setting, what do we consider our laptop; helpful, or harmful??