The debate of technology use in the classroom has been brewing for years as students have quickly become more dependent on laptops and smartphones.

Many professors all over the country have placed bans on the use of laptops and cellphones in a classroom setting. Many claim they are an inevitable distraction that inhibit students from learning the material from the lecture.
Banning laptops is limiting students to one strict way of learning. Not everyone learns the same way or retains information by one way of note-taking. I personally prefer to use my laptop in class so I can take notes. I am not good at taking notes by hand because my handwriting is not the best and I cannot keep up with the professor’s lectures by hand. Like many other students, I type faster therefore my typed notes are more in depth, easy to understand and organized. Many other students agree that laptops are easier to take notes on. It’s also convenient to have access to your laptop to google things as the professor talks about them. In some classes, professors make side comments about relative information concerning the unit that are not necessarily in the PowerPoint or notes. When things like this happen it’s important to be able to search this extra information.
It is very frustrating when professors place such broad restrictions in their classes. We are young adults who attend a University for the purpose of learning, getting a degree and hopefully finding a career we love. We are too old to be told what we can and can’t do in class.
If students want to scroll through BuzzFeed and Facebook videos for the whole hour and a half lecture, let them. If students want to take notes on their laptops during lectures, let them. If students want to whip out their trusty spiral notebooks and number two pencils to take notes, let them. It is up to us as students how we wish to proceed with our education. Those who are here to take education seriously won’t take advantage of laptop usage in class, but rather benefit from being able to choose how they learn.
Nobody can stop those who don’t want to learn from slacking off. If they don’t pay attention when they can have their laptops, they surely won’t pay attention when they can’t have them either. It is impossible to make someone pay attention, and it is not the University’s responsibility to force us to learn. The University gives us all the opportunities in the world to be successful and happy, but it is not their job to babysit us.
Though many professors have good intentions by banning laptops, they inhibit many students learning processes by limiting their note-taking capabilities. If professors want to monitor laptop usage, they could actively walk around the classroom while they lecture to glance around. Our generation has grown up with a heavy technological presence and a dependency on the convenience and accessibility of laptops. Taking that away from students only sets our growth back and disrupts our normal learning patterns.
Many professors who place these bans went to college during a time when technology was not as prevalent in society as it is today. They want to help us learn in the same way they did but times are changing and so are our learning techniques and lifestyles.

Casey Pimentel is a nineteen-year-old mass communication sophomore from The Woodlands, Texas.