As I write, the semester is halfway over, and I have not yet said anything to the student sitting next to me in my computer class.
I am trying to mind my own business. I am trying to go with the flow. I am trying to understand why she logs onto Facebook at the start of class and posts continually for the duration. It has been amazing to watch. And distracting.
I am a full-time English professor at a community college in Massachusetts. This semester I am also on sabbatical, part of which involves becoming a student again. In an attempt to update my computer skills, I enrolled in a basic technology course required of many of our students. I have been one of them, coming to class with my book bag, notebook, and textbook and sitting next to assorted 20-year-olds, some of whom I have taught in my English classes.
We sit in a computer lab, the same lab that I use to teach English Composition 101. So I am intrigued with the actions of the student next to me, and I watch her expertly minimize Facebook whenever the instructor passes by. I know, without a doubt, that the same thing must happen much more than I ever guessed in my own composition courses.
When I stand in front of this same room as a professor, and see students typing busily on their computers, I know now that they may well be responding to a remark that a friend posted on their Facebook wall. When I see them staring so intently at their computer screens and I am thinking they are absorbed in writing their drafts, I know now that they may be flipping through someone’s photos from a party the night before. When I walk to the back of the room, and up and down the aisles, and see only a Word document open on their screens, I know now not to feel so smug, because Facebook, if not minimized, can be easily accessed when I walk out of view—even though I have a written policy on my syllabus prohibiting use of social media in class, even though I warn them out loud, and even though I patrol the aisles as much as I can.
Since I am approximately 30 years older than the student sitting next to me, I can safely offer the older student’s complaint about using Facebook in the classroom: When the student opens photographs and scrolls through them, I am distracted. I am looking at the professor, or the blackboard, or the projected screen, but out of the corner of my eye I see blondes, brunettes, smiling faces, bright colors. I am trying not to look, but it is difficult to completely avoid the flashing images.
I have to pay extra attention in class in order to block her Facebook pages from my view, and that increasingly annoys me. I could change my seat, but I chose to sit in the front row; she joined that row about two weeks after the semester began. I don’t want to move back. I am an old, insecure student who wants to sit near the professor.
Of course, my reaction makes me wonder if there are students in my English classes who feel the same way I do but never tell me. Why do students need to log into Facebook during class? Why can’t they just leave it alone for 75 minutes?
As an instructor, I find the action of students’ periodically checking Facebook during my class to be rude. I work hard on the lesson plan for each day, and I expect their full attention. Logging into Facebook and posting a new status while I am talking or explaining an assignment is similar to chatting continually with friends right in front of me. It is disrespectful. I should have their full attention, right?
But is it rude behavior? Not according to some students.
A second-year law student recently admitted to me that during lectures, he and other classmates periodically log into Facebook or Google chat. Usually it’s when the professor is reviewing material he already knows well or is answering an unrelated question.
He was actually perplexed that I would find those actions rude. They are not meant to be, he said. He and his classmates are just taking a quick break from the lecture. It doesn’t mean that they aren’t listening, or that they don’t respect the professor. It doesn’t mean that they don’t care about the course.
And then he asked me: When you were in college, did you pay attention 100 percent of the time to the professor?
Well, of course not. We just did not have computers or cellphones to entertain us. So our way of zoning out was less obvious and quieter. Perhaps I finished an assignment for another class (with a notebook open, no one would know the difference). Perhaps I passed a note to a friend. Perhaps I nodded off for a few minutes or stared out the window. My method of taking a break from a lecture was less intrusive to students around me and allowed an easier entry to become re-engaged. The distractions were not exciting enough to keep me unfocused for too long.
Still, sitting in a classroom again as a student has made me wonder about my classroom policy on use of social media. If I accept that few students pay attention all of the time, and that it’s normal to take a break during a class period, do I need to change my thinking? Do I need to understand the motivations of this generation? Should I buy into the idea that their actions are not a statement of boredom but more just a quick break, nothing personal? If a student can zone out and still stay on track with the course material, should scrolling through Facebook pictures during class bother me at all? If students fall behind because they are not listening, and are instead engaged in social media, isn’t that the unfortunate choice they have made?
I suppose I should adjust my expectations. But from my view in the front of the classroom, there is something so discouraging about seeing heads bent over laptops, eyes averted, and so few reactions to the questions that I ask. And what about the students who get distracted by Facebook flashing on the computer next to them? They can complain to the student or to the professor. They can move their seat. None of those sound like satisfying options. And they don’t resolve the larger problem for the instructor.
As a student now, I know that I won’t be using any of those options myself. With the semester almost over, my plan is to work hard to ignore the party shots and stay focused.
