Mobile Culture in College Lectures: Instructors’ and Students’ Perspectives

The study explored college instructors' and students' attitudes towards the usage of mobile devices (laptops and cell phone), for non-academic purposes, during lectures. Students report excessive multitasking: usages of mobile devices for communicating with friends, gaming, etc. Instructors seem to have pretty good perceptions about the distribution of such usages. Most students accurately perceive the usage of mobile devices as disturbing instructors and peers, but they still believe such usage is legitimate! Instructors, on the contrary, feel it is not. Older students, as well, tend to think the usage of mobile devices during lectures is illegitimate. Results are discussed from the perspective of McLuhan's laws of media, and from perspectives related to millennial students' unique characteristics.