Friday, October 27, 2006

Student of the 21st century

"Student of the 21st century!", my mother exclaimed after I explained to her in detail about my experience using a computer notebook to take notes. I told her it didn't feel too out-of-the-ordinary here, since everyone uses it. Of course, back in Pakistan a person bringing a laptop to class was deemed as a show-off, since most people don't have one.


Here's a picture of a Singaporean girl in my lecture using her notebook in class - she's NOT taking notes. Rather, she is watching streaming videos from YouTube.com. (The picture quality is quite bad but if you look closely she's wearing her headphones to listen to the audio.)

Can someone explain to me why she came all the way for lecture? She's not listening to the lecturer. She might as well have stayed home. Might I add here, she's not the only one who doesn't pay attention in class. A number of students in my lectures are either chatting with their friends through an instant messenger or sms, or they're browsing the Internet for stuff irrelevant to class, or just sleeping.

So what is it that the information revolution is bringing with compact computers and wireless networks? Better ways of fooling your parents into thinking you're studying? Manual note-taking was so much better. [Not to mention 'doodling'!]

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

hahah, the fact that you noticed all these also mean that u were not paying attention in the class as well, just to let u know if u didnt realise that yet =)

Nabeel K said...

I am blessed with the ability to concentrate on more than one thing =D

Besides, it's not like my eyes were transfixed on that girl's activities [or trying to read the subtitles in the movie she was watching, though I did try to]. I was all ears for what the lecturer was saying - it was not a Chemical Engineering class where you tend to fall asleep! =P Literature is far more interesting - you would have to agree, dear cute angel. =D

Aesa said...

its called, lets fool ourselves into feeling less guilty!

and was it a literature class? fallin asleep in a lit class shud be punishable by law =)