Are You Listening to Me or Just Hearing Me?

One of my classes last year mandated that we bring our laptops to every class.  Every day we spent the whole time using a specific type software.  While we were supposed to be following along on our computers, much of the 75 minute class period was us listening as the professor explained to us what we were doing and why we were doing it, not just how to do it.  As a result, we were only supposed to be looking at the screen/typing about 10% of the time.

I noticed, however, by looking around the room, that close to no one in a 30 person class was actually focusing on the professor.  To make matters worse, the professor was actually quite funny and often cracked jokes with his dry sense of humor.  Unfortunately, the jokes were often missed because most of the students were not listening, as the material was fairly boring and monotonous.

One of the phrases most students hate to hear from professors is, “alright please close your computers.”  This is because there is an obvious tendency to do other things on your computer while sitting in class.  These range from replying to emails, checking fantasy sports teams, applying for jobs, and stumbling.  While some are more appropriate than others, the reality of the situation is that when students are on their computers, they are not paying attention to what is going on.

To test this, I recently watched a few people in one of my classes in which having a computer is okay but not necessary.  While my data is not 100% accurate, it shows a theme.

I watched 4 students for 60 seconds.  Two of these students had computers and two did not.  I chose both a male and female for each of the two categories, in an attempt to limit outside factors.  What I found correlated positively to my hypothesis.  The male student who had no computer spent all 60 seconds either looking at the board or at the professor.  The female student was looking at either the professor or the board for 57 out of the 60 seconds.  Conversely the female student who had her computer was looking up at the board/professor for only 20 seconds while the male student looked at the professor/board for only 3 seconds out of an entire minute.

While I know that my results are not 100% accurate as the students may have been taking notes on their computer, I was able to see many screens throughout the room.  All had a notes page but everyone at one point or another, while I was watching, was on the internet doing something.

I, like any student, am for bringing computers to class, especially when time is an issue to respond to emails or check an important website.  But I do find it interesting the correlation of how the computer limits attention to the topic.

Jordan Jacobson is a senior at Wake Forest University.  He is graduating this Spring with a BS in Business and Enterprise Management with minors in both Psychology and Journalism.  He is particularly interested in consumer behavior and decision making