OUR VIEW: Laptop etiquette
Welcome to laptop etiquette 1010.
A class for those who don’t understand the art of balancing the helpfulness and possible annoyance of technology in the classroom.
It all starts with the Windows welcome note, that deafening tone that spews from the speakers of a laptop, invading the solace of a quiet classroom, shattering the quaint learning environment. Computer speakers never perform as well as they do when breaking the eardrums of unsuspecting classmates with the Windows welcome note. Armies have been defeated, walls have been felled by this simple tone.
To avoid wrongful death lawsuits caused by this destroyer of worlds, just make sure to mute your computer. It’s not hard. We’re just begging you to be aware of the health and safety of your fellow students.
And until the invention of a silent keyboard, please try to type as softly as possible. We all have classmates trying to catch up on sleep they lost while studying for the quiz they just slept through.
Or, in a more extreme case only affecting about 5 percent of students, they are nursing a wicked hangover from one too many big dogs on college night. There has never been a hangover cure in the history of man that involves thousands of little pecking noises a minute. Those soft ticks sound like a gong to someone whose brain is already trying to escape from the head by the most violent means.
We really just want people to realize their keyboards are more of a percussion instrument than anything, so if you feel so inclined to play it loudly during class, at least play some early-Metallica-esque double bass runs.
Lastly, and probably most importantly, the screens on all of our laptops have a magnitude far brighter than the sun.
When coupled with a darkened classroom, this screen glare can be so powerful it can sever retinas, scorch rods or cones and shrink pupils to almost nothing, causing a week-long blindness that cripples the ability to study, ultimately starting a chain reaction of bad grades, angry parents and a terrible life working at McDonald’s or Carl’s Jr. Simple suggestion: Turn the screen power down.
We would like to preach courtesy, to avoid ruining the lives of fellow students.
Seriously, laptops and other technological inventions are changing the way classrooms, lecturing and note-taking work, but for this to be a beneficial, harmless transition, we all should be considerate.
Not just to fellow students, to professors, as well.