Thursday, November 12, 2009

Laptops(Notebooks!) in College

During the summer before my freshman year of college, I purchased a new laptop from Dell. With the options and upgrades I chose, it cost me about $1200USD. Nowadays, 4 years down the line, one could get an equivalent laptop(or notebook, because you're apparently not supposed to put them on your lap anymore, seeing as it might burn you) at any reasonably sized retailer for about $600USD.

The point? Laptops are now more accessible to students than ever before, and with the advent of the netbook, it seems that the trend will continue.

But the real focus of this post isn't how cheap laptops are today, but their use by the students who purchase them. I brought my laptop to school everyday for the first semester of college, but left it at home from the second semester onward. Why?

It was just too distracting. I never got anything done at school when I had my laptop around. I didn't pay attention to lectures, did shoddily on in class activities and assignments, and probably lost a lot of participation points. And from what I could see around me, I was hardly alone. If anything, the people(person) who actually did work on their laptops were(was) the rare breed.

My first semester was terrible, grade wise. But my Facebook page looked great.

-Posted from a Computer Lab PC during Class

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