Life Without a Laptop

Many students on campus have laptops. Some don't. In this photo illustration, Student Media Copy Editor demonstrates the dilemma. (Peter Flint)
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UPDATED 5:40 p.m. 

If you’re a Patriot, you likely have a laptop. But what’s campus life like without one? Students who don’t carry around a laptop – or at least use one for their class work – are getting more and more rare, but even at Mason, a school that prides itself in its technology, they’re not nonexistent.

One student, senior Daniel Walsh, has had a desktop computer since his freshman year. It may be tied down to one location, but Walsh says it gets the job done.

Recently, however, when the computer’s hard drive died, Walsh had become a frequent visitor to the school’s computer labs.

Mason has two open computer labs for use in Innovation and the Johnson Center. The Innovation lab, located in room 148, is open on from Monday to Thursday during the hours of 10 a.m. and 10 p.m. but is closed Friday through Sunday. The Johnson Center computer lab on the third floor is open seven days a week.

“The [Johnson Center lab] is usually ridiculously crowded,” said Walsh. “You will most likely have to wait a few minutes for a computer to become available. [Which is] not that bad, unless you are in a hurry.”

During the intermittent period when Walsh had neither desktop nor laptop computer, and couldn’t make it to the lab, Walsh said he stayed connected by using his iPod Touch to check e-mail and Facebook. Sometimes he was able to borrow his roommate’s laptop.

Students have another option to fill the gaps in computer lab times by utilizing the Fenwick Library, Johnson Center Library, and scant two computers in Student Union Building I. But there are still periods of time where no on-campus computers are available for student use.

Computers available for use in the Fenwick Library are primarily used for research purposes. As a result, many do not have word processing programs, sometimes leaving students who need to write papers out of luck.

“Computers in the library suck for the most part,” said Walsh. “[And] I really haven’t gone to the labs in Innovation…. I tend not to be able to focus very well in the labs, there is just too much stuff going on.”

To remedy the situation of heavy laptops, immobile desktops, or a weighed down backpack, some students have turned to using mini-laptops, or “netbooks” while on campus or in class to take the place of a normal-size, sometimes bulky laptop.

Senior Donald O’Mahony has only brought a laptop to school once, but says the difference between the lab and a personal computer is immense.

“Using the lab is so much quieter than trying to sit in the JC with a laptop, so it is much easier to concentrate. I get distracted easily, [and] it usually takes me a while to get work done. But in the lab I got things done faster,” said O’Mahony.