Laptops have overstayed their welcome. They are now largely a hindrance to the academic culture Vassar intends to develop—one that encourages creativity, curiosity and independent thinking. The College’s administration should incentivize and assist professors in discouraging laptop use.
It is clear using a laptop, rather than paper, to take notes, is a worse way to remember content. Grades have been shown to slip when students use laptops in their courses, even more so among male students. But, let us think beyond measurements.
These bans will be fun! Not as an exercise in masochism but because of a potential for increased engagement in the classroom. The “fun” is quality discussion and burgeoning curiosity. The “fun” is a future payoff, beyond the easy gratification of texting under a desk for half an hour. The “fun” is an attention span we can use for a lifetime of fulfillment—the type of engagement missing from YouTube shorts.
Sitting in the back row of a Vassar lecture can feel like a “who’s who” of internet culture. You tend to spy a girl with a slick back bun browsing Pinterest for Halloween costumes. Maybe you see a boy toggling back and forth between Clash Royale and ChatGPT, using it to help him do his Logic homework—a logical move, of course.
For me, classes can be straight up painful to witness. Participation seems more of a hurdle than a goalpost.
These instances have become the new normal on campus, not an anomaly. Even if you are not using your laptop in class, seeing this happen around you negatively affects your academic performance. Because this has all become so normal so quickly, the situation is difficult to remedy.
Putting myself in the shoes of a professor—say, a flashy suede pair from Nordstrom—navigating how to regulate technology appears an unwinnable game. If I ban them, students might drop my class early. They might complain or ignore me completely. If I do nothing, maybe only five students will pay attention. I might get a better course evaluation; perhaps I will keep the job I traversed the “Slough Of Despond” to secure. But at what cost?
This is where the administration’s authority could be useful. Why not attempt a campus-wide proclamation or initiative, with carveouts when necessary for accommodations, so professors have something to tactfully blame a laptop ban on? Give them a little something to incentivize a change.
Because, at Vassar, where discussion‐based courses rule the roost, 15 people playing the Wordle or The New York Times’ Mini Crossword ensures discussion is bland. Discussion is already difficult to spur on without competing with Hay Day or Handshake. We need a way to move forward. Hold my hand when I say this: We need to be “fearlessly consequential.” A public administrative move could be that first step forward.
Our college frequently puts on programming promoting student wellness. But our wellness would also benefit from encouragement in the classroom. If we paid more attention in class, our work outside of class would be easier to complete. Fewer emails would be sent at 2 a.m.
Not all students or courses are suffering. Reality is never as simple—or as bleak—as my Nordstrom shoe thought experiment suggests. Many classes have plenty of engaged students, with no need for change. Some professors already discourage the use of laptops; some students already use them responsibly.
Others need laptops as an academic accommodation, which ought to remain permissible so that these students can comfortably participate, take notes, complete in‐class assignments, etc. The issue is not with these students.
The issue is with students on the edge, whose participation would increase with this encouragement. Those who might become all the more intelligent, eloquent and curious without Instagram stories encircling them.
We cannot force people to be invested in every class period. Some people are less inclined to talk in class and have different avenues to show off their chops. Sometimes you have a bad day and have to take a step back. But students who, day after day, refuse to engage in a course at all, become all the more easier to spot when laptops are banned. They no longer get to float on by as a member of the herd.
This solution—for both well‐meaning and uninterested students—is thus simple trickery. It was never about banning laptops; it was about incentivizing good use of our education. We should, as a campus, decide to have more “fun” and get up to more tricks. Who knows what we will learn because of it?