When you open up your laptop in class, you’re immediately drawn into another world. Notifications, popups, dozens of tabs — it’s so easy for technology to become distracting.
I often heard my professors discourage us from using our computers in class. Some would opt for printed readings, and others even refused to use Canvas at all. This caused me to wonder, just how big of a difference does having technology in class make?
So I challenged myself to get rid of it completely. Or really, as much as possible.
For a week, I attempted to use as little technology as I could in my classes. This meant not having the ability to use my computer to take notes, reference readings, or pull up a Canvas course.
As an English and Journalism major, my classes presented a wide range of difficulty when it came to completing this task.
English was easier. Since these classes were reading, analysis and discussion based, I normally wasn’t using my computer that much. My professors encouraged having physical copies of the texts, and notes could be made right in the margins.
The English Department doesn’t have specific guidelines for tech use. When I asked Professor of English and Charles Deering McCormick Professor of Teaching Excellence Jeffery Masten about technology in class, he said he has his own no-computer policy, but the department leaves those decisions to the individual instructors.
In Masten’s classes, students expressed to him that they prefer having physical readings “because it helps them to stay present and engaged in discussion.” Throughout the week, I found myself agreeing with this more and more.
On Monday, I only had to use my computer once between my two English classes, and I was instantly distracted when I opened it. Though all I had planned to do was put a due date in my calendar, I immediately felt drawn to check my emails or look at the other assignments I had open.
History professor Susan Pearson has seen this effect firsthand in her classes.
”I had pretty, I think, good evidence that the temptation of having these digital devices open when you’re in class, it’s just really hard to resist doing other things,” Pearson said. “And I’ve had that experience myself.”
This influenced Pearson to create a no-technology policy for her classroom. Not being able to open your computer eliminates some of the potential distraction. Without the gleam of technology, I was able to better immerse myself in my course. But the minute one issue was gone, another presented itself.
Not using my computer in class meant that if I had any readings or presentation slides I wanted to reference, they had to be printed.
Northwestern provides a six dollar printing quota each quarter. Black and white printing costs three cents per page and color printing costs ten cents per page. Between the readings and notes I needed for the week, I found that if I printed everything in black and white, double sided, it would total 76 pages — bringing the total cost to two dollars and 28 cents, over a third of my quota for the quarter.
This price doesn’t include any books I needed. Paperback copies of the three books I used that week cost 32 dollars total, 11 dollars more than their online versions.
Eliminating tech definitely wasn’t cheap, but is the learning benefit worth the cost? Professors such as Pearson have found a way to tackle this issue for students.
As part of Pearson’s no-technology policy for both her undergraduate and graduate classes, she asks students to take notes by hand and bring in printed copies of readings.
”I haven’t had any difficulty with it, and I always also tell students that if they have issues with the cost of materials or things like that, that they should speak to me privately, and I’m happy to kind of just give them copies of things,” Pearson said. “So I always try to make it easy for students to participate in the ways that I’m asking them to participate.”
Making this policy accessible also works to curb one of Pearson’s growing concerns — AI use.
”I see education as a developmental process, and I think that even students in college are still going through that developmental process where they’re still building skills,” Pearson said. “And if you’re using AI to short-circuit the skill-building process, then you’re kind of not going to reap all the benefits of the developmental process of being in college.”
While reading based classes such as Pearson’s history courses can resort to printed materials, other topics don’t have such an easy solution.
On Tuesday and Thursday, I had my Journalism class. This course uses an online software that can’t be replicated on a print-out. Since I was forced to use technology, I instead had to become aware of the distractions and force myself to ignore them.
Still, not being distracted by tech isn’t as easy as just closing your computer. Physics and Astronomy Professor Michael Smutko noticed this issue in his class over 15 years ago.
“I’d look up in a room and I wouldn’t see any faces. All I would see would be Apple logos and Dell logos and, you know,” Smutko said. “And I couldn’t help but wonder, is, is this a good thing?”
He worked with Psychology Professor Sara Broaders to study the effect of tech use in their respective classes.
“ We were able to get information on each student in our classes and how much Wi-Fi data they, they used during the class,” Smutko said. “And then so the idea was that at the end of the quarter, we would see is there a correlation, you know, from person to person between the amount of data that they downloaded or uploaded or whatever in class to the grades at the end of the quarter.”
Ultimately, they found that there was a negative correlation. Students with higher average data usage had lower grades than ones who had less data usage. Smutko and Broaders applied their research to their classes by creating laptop zones on the outskirts of the classroom.
“If you really wanna use a laptop, and I will give my speech, and I will do my best to say why it’s a bad idea, but if you really wanna use one, okay, but you have to sit in the, you know, off to the right and in the back so that there’s nobody behind you that’s gonna be distracted by that,” Smutko said.
After doing even more extensive studies, the professors honed in their method to enforce using as little tech as possible in their classes. By creating the laptop zones, they prevent any distraction that might come second-hand.
“If a student doesn’t wanna pay attention, that’s on them. They’re adults. You don’t wanna pay attention, fine,” Smutko said. “But I will absolutely not permit that one student to affect the people around them.”
Using tech in the classroom creates a problem that is difficult to balance. It’s a helpful tool, but it also opens the door to distractions and means of diminishing personal learning, such as AI.
“It’s not that we’re anti-technology by any means, but when the technology is, is directly opposed to all of the good proven methods for actually learning material, that’s when it becomes a problem,” Smutko said.
After a week of trying to limit tech, I found that it wasn’t easy. Printing costs, distractions from others, unavoidable online work — they all make it more difficult to separate the online world from the real one.
But even a little separation makes a difference. So if you’d like to change your learning experience, and maybe even limit distractions to those around you, try closing that computer.
