Laptops in class - with a guest lecturer?

It is November 30th, and there is a guest speaker in my Sociology class, Views from the Third World. Most of the students are paying attention to the guest speaker and participating in a discussion about the Israel-Palestine conflict. Three students are using their laptops. One of them is sitting near the front and is clearly taking notes on the discussion. The two others sitting closer to the middle that are using laptops are browsing such websites as Facebook and Myspace and are clearly not paying attention to the guest speaker. Anyone sitting behind them would easily notice that they are not using their laptops for any sort of schoolwork, and the guest speaker and the professor should easily have noticed that these students were focusing solely on their computers, but there was no response from either.

In Front of MGC

In Front of Mary Graden Center - 5:00 PM November 30th
While sitting outside of MGC I oberserved 24 people walk by listening to an mp3 player. The majority walked by and did not interact with anyone they passed. Here are some of the more interesting observations for the day.

• A young man walks by with ipod, he looks down at the path and never looks up while walking. He quickly walks past MGC without greeting anyone he passes.

• A girl walks by alone drinking coffe and listening to her ipod
• A guy walks walks be and listens to ipod, he says hello to a girl but does not stop to have a conversation. Instead he keeps walking towards his desitnation.
  
• A girl walks to the library with an ipod and lots of books. She does not acknowledge anyone as she walks by.
• a guy walks by wearing earphones and sending a textmessage on his phone. He then meets up with a few freinds are removes his headphones. After talking for a few minutes he replaces his earphoines and continues walking.
• A guy walks by listening to ipod. He takes out one of his earpieces and calls someone on his phone. He does not stop his mp3 player. When the person he was calling apparently picks up the phone he takes out the other earpieces and walks away.

iCulture

Here is a short article on the iCulture and how it is impacting our society.
Some Call It Culture, Others Call It Cult Activity

Society is dead, we have retreated into the iWorld

Here is an article from the Times Online that discusses the impact of ipods on our society. The columinst, Andrew Sullivan agrues that we have retreated from society to the comfort of the iWorld.
Comment: Andrew Sullivan: Society is dead, we have retreated into the iWorld