After reading last week’s article, “Laptops, tablets acceptable note-taking resources in class,” I decided the alternate viewpoint needed to be discussed.

By college, one can make decisions for him or herself; hopefully, these will be good decisions. Taking one’s laptop to class is a decision that students make everyday, but rarely think about. Are there really any consequences to such a harmless choice? Most professors would say there is. How are they to know a student is taking notes behind the lid of his computer? Here’s a hint: if a student is displaying signs of amusement and the professor is discussing geometry proofs, chances are his attentions are more likely directed at a game of Farmville or scrolling through his Twitter feed. While it is indisputable that students can benefit academically from the resources on laptops, tablets and even smartphones, their use in classes is more harmful than advantageous.

As far as efficiency goes, students are no more capable of typing every word that a professor rambles off than they are of writing it. Despite teenagers spending much of their time texting or typing statuses on their favorite social media sites, typing papers and sending emails, typing is not necessarily faster or more accurate. Relying on autocorrect to assure accuracy of one’s notes is actually detrimental to the writing process. Yet, despite its newfound importance of typing in the educational system, it has been repeatedly found to be a substandard way of learning.

“The idea that writing is a method of learning is based on simple principle: when students write, they process information in a physical, tangible form. Writing activities require students to explore ideas, discover relationships, observe contrasts, sequence ideas and process information,” according to a study by college professors Fulwiler and Young in 1982 and Gage in 1986. The process of writing requires the student to focus on the creation of the letters, while typing does not. The physical creation of letters aids the memory in ways that hitting buttons cannot. If one must look at the keys to type, which most students no longer need to, he is better off than if he taps away, never glancing at where his fingers fall. He is still being forced to process the order of letters that he is typing. By simply looking at the screen or switching between glances at the screen and the keyboard, one is only paying attention to the words that are magically appearing in front of him or worse yet, is paying attention to something else entirely, be it a song that is playing or a call he is answering.

Many researchers support this theory with a quote from Frank Wilson, a neurologist and author: “Any theory of human intelligence which ignores the interdependence of hand and brain function, the historical origins of that or the impact of that history on the developmental dynamics in modern humans, is grossly misleading and sterile.”

With paper and pencil in hand, students don’t have the choice to quickly social media hop. How many students can really ignore the desire to log on to their Facebook, Twitter or Instagram accounts and complain about how boring the lecture is? The professor has no way of knowing that instead of following the lecture notes, a student is spending his time jumping between social media sites. Also, it is easier to fall victim if the temptation of one’s favorite social media sites or friends’ cell phone numbers are at his fingertips.

However, the most detrimental effect of  access to computers, tablets and smartphones in class is the loss of self-reliance. With the ability to send oneself text reminders about classes or sit back and relax while a computer records lectures, students are becoming lazy and overly dependent on the technology that they surround themselves with. Soon, students will write essays by dictating to the computer what words to type. If we allow this trend to continue,  will typing become obsolete too, because a more convenient method of doing work has arisen?

By the way, I have checked Facebook three times while writing this. How many times will you check it during class?