‘I’m a modern-day luddite’: Meet the students who don’t use laptops

Comments

• HailSeitan@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  That’s not what being a Luddite means

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  • mienshao@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    What a stupid, pedantic take. Luddite can absolutely mean a person who purposefully avoids technology.

    I’m sure I’ll get downvoted, but words can have multiple meanings and take on new meanings over time. Luddite is one of them. This article used it properly.

    And anyone who disagrees with me can kiss my linguistics-degree-holding ass.

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    • KSPAtlas@sopuli.xyz ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      Yeah, there’s this stereotype that professional/qualified linguistics are like super prescriptive but in reality most either don’t give a shit or are interested in informal language

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    • anzo@programming.dev ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      “Modern day” Luddite. It’s not just using the word isolated! Tittle clearly mixes the meaning with the historical reference. Plus, the one being pedantic were you… But thanks anyway for pointing out the word has two definitions.

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    • 0x0@lemmy.zip ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      What a pedantic […] linguistics-degree-holding ass.

      Indeed

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  • LainTrain@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    What does it mean then?

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    • HellieSkellie@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      Image

      “He goes to the library with nothing but his “pen and paper,” and stays there until his essay is done. “Then I’m free to doomscroll Instagram on my phone without any guilt”

      1. He doesn’t seem very opposed to technology if he just goes straight home and doomscrolls

      2. Are laptops really new technology to this kid if they’ve existed for his entire life?

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  • biofaust@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    In your defense, the statement specifies “modern-day Luddite” which compares it to the historical Luddite bands and excludes the first meaning of the Oxford dictionary.

    Also, avoiding is not the same as opposing.

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  • ronigami@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    Got a better word?

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• blackn1ght@feddit.uk ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  Title is misleading:

  Nick, a philosophy student at the University of Cambridge, stopped using his laptop for university work in the last year of his undergraduate degree. He still types his essays, but lecture notes, revision, and essay planning are all done by hand.

  The second sentence contradicts the first:

  stopped using his laptop for university work

  then

  He still types his essays

  So basically he’s not taking a laptop in to the lecture hall to take notes etc but is still using a computer to complete his work. Which makes sense as pen & paper in that environment is way more practical anyway.

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  • Akuchimoya@startrek.website ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    All assignments are submitted electronically now, and if he’s in philosophy, he will also have to follow formatting requirements like font, font size, margins, and spacing. Practically, he’s doing as much as he is allowed off-computer.

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    • blackn1ght@feddit.uk ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      They’re still using computers to do their university work and submit it though. It’s more about them not using a laptop in a lecture hall and using pen and paper instead. That’s not really a big deal considering that’s probably what most people were doing anyway up until relatively recently.

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    • scathliath@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      Honestly I used to do the same a decade ago in engineering before changing majors mainly cause my laptop was a fucking brick.

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  • rustydrd@sh.itjust.works ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    Yeah, the way he does it is basically how everyone did it even 10 years ago. The tools were mostly the same then as they are now, with the exception of AI and the fact that handwriting wasn’t as big a thing anymore when today’s undergrads were in school. If you have a fluid and moderately quick handwriting, paper notes will typically be easier to take and more useful for revising the material later on.

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  • Blackmist@feddit.uk ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    Maybe he’s lugging a massive typewriter around.

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    • blackn1ght@feddit.uk ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      I’ve got images of the lecturer giving him death stares every time he starts typing, filling the room with the cliter-clatter of the keys.

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    • baines@lemmy.cafe ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      that is hipster

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    • SaveTheTuaHawk@lemmy.ca ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      mayb he takes notes with a quill and ink. Dab…dab…dab…

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  • stoly@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    Studies have also shown that taking notes by writing causes better learning outcomes compared to typing.

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    • lordbritishbusiness@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      Can confirm, switched away from laptop notes to incomprehensible-to-others fountain pen writing. Writing is the important part anyway.

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    • sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      That’s only true if you don’t refer to your notes. Reviewing notes has a much stronger correlation to remembering than how those notes are generated.

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    • Lfrith@lemmy.ca ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      Wasn’t the case for me for information dense subjects like biology related subjects. Found I didn’t retain anything, but worst of all my notes were so messy I couldn’t even use them, so ended up wasting time having to go back and listen to the lecture again to create notes I could study off of and make short summaries of to start memorizing.

      Some exceptions to typing has been problem solving basic subjects like math where there’s no rush to try to get down bunch of information, so for that I definitely go handwriting. But, for really information dense subjects its typing all the way.

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  • echodot@feddit.uk ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    I used to take my laptop into the lecture hall but I hardly ever actually used it.

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    • sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      Same. I mostly used it for homework between classes.

      I found the most effective strategy for me was to do the reading before class, bring the book in to refer to, listen intently for things I didn’t get from the book, and reread the section after class. If the professor specifically called out something to take notes on, I’d either do that on my phone or pull out my laptop (esp just before midterms or finals).

      My handwriting is awful and I almost never refer to my notes anyway.

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  • SaveTheTuaHawk@lemmy.ca ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    Exactly how does he research his essays without internet access?

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    • blackn1ght@feddit.uk ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      Well you see he’s stopped using the internet for his university work. But he still uses the internet for research for his essays.

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• undefined@lemmy.hogru.ch ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  I absolutely love doing everything on the computer and can’t stand writing things by hand anymore. I’ve always heard simply by listening — instructors that force students to take notes were the worst because I would be too busy scrambling to write things down than actually listen and learn.

  All of this goes out the window when it comes to foreign language though. I have to do everything old school: textbooks, pencil and paper, and if it’s a non-Latin character set I have to write the same characters over and over for hours.

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  • bryndos@fedia.io ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    For me I always wrote as i listened, still do often.
    I rarely read the notes back.

    'Revision' was just writing a whole new set of notes either from memory or from sources.
    Then, never reading that set of notes.

    Massive waste of paper and ink, but it's part of how i pay attention.
    Most of my lecturers did provide printouts of all the slides, but I'd scribble all over them anyway.

    Typing doesn't do the same thing at all for me.

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  • Wildmimic@anarchist.nexus ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    I realized that when i tried to cheat on a test in school, that when i prepared a cheat sheet, i didn't actually need it afterwards - that only applies when writing the sheet by hand.

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  • LainTrain@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    I always take notes, listening shmistening it’s in one ear out the other, reading and writing helps me absorb information much easier, but I never did take notes when we were forced to use pen and paper, once we switched to laptops in high school, I could note down every word because typing is so much easier and faster.q

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  • Lfrith@lemmy.ca ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    I love digital because it is so easy to go back and reference old notes too. I use obsidian, and being able to go back and recall something I need a more detailed refresher on is so convenient.

    My handwritten stuff got trashed because I’m not digging through all that and was just taking up space.

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• FlyingCircus@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  I hate how the term Luddite has been co-opted as a blanket term for someone who rejects technology for any reason. The original Luddites were a labor movement who were angry that technology was taking people’s livelihoods while society was doing nothing to prevent those people from becoming destitute.

  Kinda exactly how AI is going to fuck over a lot of people while primarily benefiting the rich people who own it.

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  • L7HM77@sh.itjust.works ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    Was gonna bring up the same point about Luddites. They were absolutely pro-automation.

    They saw greedy corporations using automation, and getting ready to fuck their society into the dirt, so they started petitioning their local governments, tried to negotiate and drew up the plans for a social security program ~150 years before one was actually implemented, smashed a bunch of expensive corporate equipment when the government wouldn’t respond, then the government sided with corporate, used the military to drag all the men, women, and children into public squares and executed every last one of them. Even relatives and companions that weren’t in the group and didn’t participate. So thoroughly annihilated that it left an informational pinhole in the history books, and the name was co-opted into an insult. Now we’re really not sure if John Ludd even existed, maybe the name was just a mythical legend already, and was used as a rally point to boost morale.

    And here we are, barely 200 years in the future, about to repeat the fuzzy spots again and rediscover why we brought citrus fruits with us on the ships, with the general population completely oblivious to the brutality the owner class is ready and able to deploy.

    What happens if the tech bros are right, and the machine doesn’t need 9/10ths of the human population any more?

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    • HertzDentalBar@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      Image

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  • creation7758@lemmy.ml ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    Luddite was a derogatory term anyway. One might have legit reasons to be against personally using certain technologies

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  • Jason2357@lemmy.ca ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    Indeed. The Luddites the high-skilled technology workers of their time! And were the first bloody chapter of the labour movement, nearly erased from that history by their oppressors. “Blood in the machine” by Brian Merchant is a great history of this.

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• ratten@lemmings.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  Laptops are extremely useful. It really doesn’t make sense to avoid them.

  I pretty much treat mine as my second brain.

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  • Dasus@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    Just remember to back that shit up.

    Nothing like forgetting your brain on public transport and getting instant amnesia for the past five years.

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    • 0x0@lemmy.zip ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      Ever read Stross’s Accelerando? Not far off plot there.

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  • HeyThisIsntTheYMCA@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    eh. i prefer desktops. i see the use of laptops, but i prefer to use as little disposable tech as possible.

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    • Appoxo@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      Maybe something like a Framework would be appropriate?

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  • Allero@lemmy.today ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    As someone who studied without laptop through an entire bachelor’s degree - it is a valid option, and I still often make handwritten notes of study materials.

    When you write things down by hand, you process information for longer and use more parts of your brain to do so, which genuinely helps to memorize study materials.

    It also allows for more focus. Personally, I found that when I moved, eventually, to using laptop in my studies, it has reduced my attention span and added unnecessary distractions. When all you have at your fingertips is paper and a pen, there is nowhere to get astray.

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  • 0x0@lemmy.zip ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    I pretty much treat mine as my second brain.

    Withering away your first brain in the process.

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    • ratten@lemmings.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      Not really.

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• sharkfucker420@lemmy.ml ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  I do that but its actually because I just don’t own a laptop and don’t want to buy one

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• Stillwater@sh.itjust.works ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  Good for these kids. It’s a wise move!

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• stiephelando@discuss.tchncs.de ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  I did that in uni, too. Everyone brought their laptops to the lectures while I took notes on paper. Writing by hand makes your brain absorb the information better I think

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  • LongDickJonsson@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    Not just what you think. Hand writing is scientifically better for memory retention and more pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11943480/

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  • Subscript5676@lemmy.ca ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    It does. I vastly prefer writing notes by hand than typing em. But my handwriting sucks when I have to write quickly, and I also don’t like lugging around giant stacks of paper. And so I settled on a digital writing pad, and just do the work to type my notes later. Acts as revision too.

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    • 0x0@lemmy.zip ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      so I settled on a digital writing pad

      Which hardware/OS?

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  • Akasazh@feddit.nl ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    Same for me. Also I sat in front, becouse in the back I would be disturbed by all the not-lecture related stuff people had open on their laptops.

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  • Mistic@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    It does, but in my experience, it’s way worse for recollection.

    Electronic devices are superior when it comes to storing and organizing data, which makes it a better tool if you prefer to use active recall as a memorisation method.

    I had literal books worth of notes until switching to a tablet (a stylus keeps the benefits of writing, btw). And going over them when preparing for exams was an absolute nightmare.

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  • Corkyskog@sh.itjust.works ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    Me too, but that’s because my parents bought me a laptop with like a 19 inch screen thinking it would be helpful. That fucker was heavy.

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• electric@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  As “someone who gets distracted very easily,” he made the change to reclaim his attention span. Ditching his laptop gave him an environment where “YouTube isn’t around the corner” and he can focus on his reading.

  This is just avoiding the issue of having a short attention span.

  Reminds me a lot of fellow classmates at my college who I discovered hate online classes because they say they can’t stay focused. So I don’t know how these “luddite” students plan to not get distracted when their job will most likely involve sitting in front of a computer.

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  • antonim@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    I used to be easily distracted during online lectures yet had little difficulty following live lectures. It’s a fundamentally different experience, for whatever reason.

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    • LainTrain@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      I had the opposite experience, in person lectures drove me crazy as an unmedicated adhder, I’d be constantly chiming in and answering every question, my legs would be going wild under the table and I’d usually be just doing something else most of the time on the laptop. Online is much much easier to listen to and get invested in at your own time and pace because you can be eating or vaping while watching at 3AM or whatever and nobody gives a fuck

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  • Maeve@kbin.earth ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    Attention span is cultivated, so is discipline. Reading about it is theory. Forcing oneself to do it, in increasingly sizable chunks, is praxis. I'm talking to myself here, too.

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  • DJDarren@sopuli.xyz ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    This is just avoiding the issue of having a short attention span.

    And how do you improve your attention span? By not having distractions available to you.

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    • LainTrain@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      That sounds like he’s just not going to be well adjusted for the modern world where distractions will always be available. You don’t get over a love for a drug by making it unavailable, you get over it by having it everywhere, yet refusing it.

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• shneancy@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  i much prefered writing notes on paper but i’d cry if i had to write an essay by hand, i hope those students aren’t torturing themselves this way

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  • Allero@lemmy.today ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    Every English class at my uni has huge, like 10-page essays (can you even call them essays at this point?) where we cover scientific developments in our field we discovered in that month.

    Everything is handwritten because “there were students who used LLMs, and they need to be sure at least some effort is put into admission”. Like, just to spite on LLM users and all of us just in case.

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    • shneancy@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      o.o holy shit- i mean that’s a valid move, using AI for a handwritten piece sounds like a pain in the ass, but so does just writing 10 pages by hand, AI or not!

      i’m glad i got through my higher education marginally before the AI boom hit (i graduated 3 years ago). i only had Turnitin yell “PLAGIARISM???” at me when i used a common phrase that another student used at some point somewhere (think - “The research suggests…”, or sometimes even the page numbers), good times good times

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    • floo@retrolemmy.com ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      Aww— leaky Nazi cunt has a cry cry

      Kill yourself

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• ulterno@programming.dev ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  I really like being able to Ctrl+F through my book.
  But there just seems to be some kind of feel to flipping a page that makes me feel more focussed.

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• mang0@lemmy.zip ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  Not using a laptop because it can distract you is like shrinking your stomach because you can’t stop eating. Oh, wait…

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• mdhughes@lemmy.sdf.org ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  Went to school before the late '90s: Write everything in paper notebooks & exam books.

  Went to school between late '90s-2020s: Tap it all into a computer. Learn nothing.

  Went to school late 2020s on: Write in paper notebooks, in between scavenging the ruins for food.

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• Rooty@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  Is taking notes by hand really that exceptional? When I went to college ages ago I only typed essays on a desktop computer, studying was done with textbook + lecture notes, maaybe with a handful of online resources.

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• sensualsunset@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  I really like this idea, but its difficult. when I used to attend uni it was more feasible but in 2025 all of my courses require online submissions, discussion, and materials. I can rent a laptop from the library, but only for 4 hours at a time. Of course there are desktops, but realistically if you want work from home you need a computer/tablet. That said I still just borrow my partners and haven’t bothered to buy one.

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• Tollana1234567@lemmy.today ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  i think its mostly AI that was the problem. we all used notebooks even last decade, you just cant concentrate with a laptop writing notes.

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• Integrate777@discuss.online ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  Let me guess. They don’t use a laptop, but brag about it endlessly on tiktok with a holier-than-thou attitude?

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• RememberTheApollo_@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  While browsing Insta and Tiktok on a cellphone in class. That word does not mean what you think it means.

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• Sunshine@piefed.ca ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  Going to school with a book instead of a phone is way more enjoyable.

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• Jankatarch@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  Is now a good time to complain about that one guy who brings a $3000 gaming laptop to the computer science lectures because expensive stuff makes him a good programmer and proceeds to distract people accross the room by the sheer volume of his fan spinning?

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• finitebanjo@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  I just have a hard time picturing things being so different from when I left academia only a couple of years ago. Everybody still had pen and paper notebooks

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• Randomgal@lemmy.ca ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  Imagine choosing suffering voluntarily in 2025. What a privileged fuck.

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• Harbinger01173430@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  We must stop using devices that use Abominable Intelligence.

  They will be our doom

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• Rcklsabndn@sh.itjust.works ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  I haven’t been to school for a couple decades. Do they no longer teach how to take proper notes in your first year (paper or computer or otherwise)?

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• SlartyBartFast@sh.itjust.works ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  Good for them

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