Why laptops in class are distracting America's future workforce

[Commentary] As these first few weeks of the college semester begin, professors look out expectantly into grand lecture halls, where they see, rather than faces of students, the backs of open laptops.

The students, for their part, are looking intently at the laptop screens. What are they doing as they stare forward with such apparent focus? Thanks to wireless Internet access, they are updating their Facebook, Twitter, and Tumblr profiles; they are chatting on Skype, Gchat, or iChat; they are making travel plans, or reading the newspaper, or following the pennant race. This fall, higher education lost yet another new class of freshmen, as the new students learned that the university classroom is just one more physical place to be on the Internet. I would not have the attention of my students if I did not ban laptops and smartphones from my classroom. Part of the problem is that students are not paying attention at a given moment; part of the problem is that they often lack the ability to pay attention at all.

Removing laptops from the classroom gives students a chance to focus, and a chance to learn to focus. Without the flash of screens and the sound of typing, they find themselves... learning. In most courses, much is lost and nothing is gained by the use of the Internet. If the students need to use the Internet, they have the remaining 23 hours of the day, and indeed the rest of their lives, to do their screen-staring.