How to resist the gravitational pull of iPhones and laptops
Our etiquette hasn’t kept up with our technology. It’s time for some public shaming.
I am sitting in the audience at a conference at Columbia University, pretending to take notes about a presentation on journalism education. But like most of the people around me, I am not paying attention. I am checking email and sending text messages to my wife.
To my right, a guy in his 20s is using Weibo, a Twitter-like app from China. A guy in front of him is playing a game on his phone that involves blowing things up.
I look around the room and it’s clear that fully two-thirds of the people are not paying attention. Many are checking Facebook, looking at email, browsing their Twitter feeds. One guy is writing code.
The paradox of this scene is that I am at a conference on the value of computing in journalism. But the computers are so intoxicating that the audience isn’t paying attention to the discussion about them. The conference is quite interesting, but it’s no match for the gravitational pull of our phones and laptops.
I should know better. In my classes at Duke University, I ban laptops and phones under a rule I call “The Cruel Irony of This Course.” I teach about digital media, but you can’t consume any in class.
The problem is that our etiquette hasn’t caught up with technology. Laptops are still considered tools that make us more productive. If you’re using one in a conference, business meeting or other large gathering, it’s assumed you are taking notes or tweeting important quotes and observations. But any advantage laptops might provide for better note-taking is erased by the irresistible temptation to check social media, respond to emails and send messages. (Thanks to apps, it’s now easy to send texts from your computer.)
Recent studies make a compelling case to ban laptops and phones. One found students who frequently checked Facebook and sent texts while doing schoolwork got lower grades. Other studies found students who sent texts in class got lower exam scores and that students who took notes on laptops performed worse on analytical questions than those who took notes longhand.
My students say about one-fourth of their professors prohibit laptops and phones. The smaller the class, the more likely electronics will be banned. Clay Shirky, a professor at NYU and a leading thinker about digital media, wrote last year that the final straw that convinced him to ban laptops, tablets and phones was a study that found the users weren’t the only ones distracted by the glowing screens — people sitting nearby were, too.
“Anyone distracted in class doesn’t just lose out on the content of the discussion, they create a sense of permission that opting out is OK, and, worse, a haze of second-hand distraction for their peers,” Shirky wrote.
I’m surprised the percentage of professors who ban laptops is so low. There’s nothing worse than delivering a lecture to a student who isn’t paying attention (except perhaps a student who is asleep). Why do we tolerate this?
In group settings such as classes and conferences, laptops were supposed to make us more productive so we could take better notes and share observations over social media. But as Shirky explains, “The industry has committed itself to an arms race for my students’ attention, and if it’s me against Facebook and Apple, I lose.”
And it’s clear that’s not just true with college students, but even college professors like me who can’t resist the urge to send text messages to their wives or update their Facebook status.
Checking your Facebook page while sitting in a conference is really no different than pulling out a novel or reading a newspaper. You wouldn’t read the novel or the paper because it would be obvious you were being rude. But you check Facebook because you can pretend to be listening and taking notes.
It’s time for our etiquette to catch up with our technology. The first step is to acknowledge that in many settings, laptops and phones are simply not being used for productive activities. We should regard their use the way we do for other kinds of boorish behavior.
The solution is to take the same approach as movie theaters: public shaming. At the movies, videos making fun of rude smartphone users have become a standard part of the pre-roll. Likewise, Broadway theaters use recorded announcements and even actors to make light-hearted pleas to switch off their devices.
There’s rarely an urgent need to share the highlights of a conference on Twitter, so attendees should save their commentary for later. While a meeting is underway, the polite solution is simple: take notes with a pen and paper.
