Essay On Laptop Use

Within the past decade, laptop use has become very common in classrooms, especially in those at a university. This has become popular amongst students who prefer to type their notes, rather than write them with a pen or pencil. But as the laptop use rises, so do the studies on its actual effects on the users. Many people argue that using a laptop in class just creates distractions and inhibits learning. They claim that students will multitask on the laptops, removing their attention from the actual lecture. Instead of taking notes the whole time, they will play games or engage in the social network websites. Others argue on the opposing side of this, creating a debate that has stormed popular media, and it continues to be argued every day.
Michael Oliveira weighs in on this debate with his article “Students’ use of laptops in class lowers grades: Canadian Study.” His article states that laptop use in class has negative effects on the students. His article discusses how laptop use in a classroom not only affects the user, but also that user’s peers. The overall effect of this technology will be a lower grade for the students. To support his claim, he refers to a Canadian study that tests the effects of laptop use in a university-level lecture. According to Oliveira’s article, the results of this study support the claim that in-class laptop use has a negative effect on both the users and the user’s peers; it is enough to lower one’s grade from a B to a B-. This is a result of the students doing things on their laptops that have no relation to the academic environment, such as going on social networks, playing games, and watching movies. Oliveira also mentions that according to the researcher, the students did not expect the laptop...

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...rrie B. Fried’s study. When viewed, her results clearly support what Oliveira claims, but the limitations always have to be taken into account. The specific setting of the study and the idea to have many self-reported results can really hurt the validity of the results, along with the application of them. But from what was shown in the study, it can be concluded that having laptops in the classroom will definitely not benefit a student in many ways. There appear to be far more negatives than positives, and Michael Oliveira is safe to make the claims that he made in his article. Laptops do not appear to be the best item to have within a learning environment because of all the distractions that they hold for the user, and for those individuals surrounding the user. Despite this, the debate will continue to go on until more research is done on this controversial topic.