Bicameral

clipped from pajamasmedia.com A generation ago, academia embraced the laptop as the most welcome classroom innovation since the ballpoint pen. But during the past decade, it has evolved into a powerful distraction. Wireless Internet connections tempt students away from note-typing to e-mail, blogs, YouTube videos, sports scores, even online gaming — all the diversions of a home computer beamed into the classroom to compete with the professor for the student’s attention. But although the Washington Post has cast the problem in terms of distraction these devices pose, the underlying difficulty may be more basic. The computer has become cybernetically part of many people. For many people, “you” no longer means just “you”. It means you and your computer. And how can a person attend class with an essential part of himself removed? “My laptop lives with me. I’m always on it,” said Madeline Twomey, 20, a George Washington junior.