I am not sure if other students go through similar anxieties but I always wonder if I should use my laptop in class or not. I was sitting in bio lecture the other day, furiously scribbling down notes and wishing that I could just type up everything instead because that would be so much faster, not to mention way more legible than my own messy scrawl. So laptops definitely get a plus for convenience and efficiency unless you count, of course, the extra bulk it adds to your person. -___- I have a macbook and despite its apparent sheek slimness, it is actually quite heavy (especially if you’re an English major with a million other books to carry… ^^)

Well I have also been quite wary of laptops because they can be just distracting. The campus-wide wi-fi accessibility is cool, but it also has the power to tease you into obsessively checking your email, taking a “quick” look at facebook updates, or twitter haha. I guess it comes down to a matter of self-control and maybe I’m just weak. ^^ I also have a feeling that most professors can sense if you are fully present in their class or absorbed in the virtual reality of the online web so watch out or you’ll get picked on! >_< Public humiliation awaits, unless you are the sort of person who is slick enough to get out of that situation with your coolness intact haha I am definitely…not. ^^

One of my friends also told me that you can score higher class participation points if a professor can actually see and remember your face, which is sort of hard to do if you are half-covered by the laptop screen. There are probably ways to get around that as well but for myself I try to stay away from using a laptop in most of my seminar courses because I feel it just becomes a kind of wall that divides you from the rest of the class discussion. As for bio lecture I totally…caved (will be using my laptop to take down lecture notes and will be working on my self-control too) ^^