From the daily Wordle and the New York Times’ crossword to cheesy texts and clothing purchases, I have observed almost everything possible on laptop screens during class at Yale. Seemingly overnight, the norm in my seminars has morphed into almost every student whipping out their laptops at the start of class.

While this problem is pervasive in lectures, too, I’m more disturbed by its impact on the seminar experience. In courses like “Machiavelli and Machiavellianism” and “The Ethics of Marx, Kierkegaard, and Nietzsche,” which are difficult enough in their own right, there are few compelling reasons why students need to have their laptop screens in front of them.

I chose Yale because it offered small seminars with some of the most renowned professors. Yale was my golden ticket to study with the best and brightest. I chose Yale because I assumed I would be surrounded by some of the most brilliant minds as my peers. Yet, in a high-level ethics seminar, most students have their laptops open; by watching their eyes dance across their screen, I can clearly tell they are not taking notes. My peers are brilliant, no doubt, but they are not contributing to the fullest extent.

I am exhausted from being overstimulated and distracted in class by my peers’ too-bright and too-massive laptop screens in seminar. Why do students at Yale crave such distracting stimulation from their screens? Is the concept of Kierkegaard’s ‘absurd’ not enough of an intellectually stimulating riddle, or must we solve the daily sudoku?

Surprisingly, this obsession is not limited to the students least interested in the course’s content. Some of the best comments in my seminars come from the very students who join in the conversation in between online shopping, planning upcoming trips, and texting friends for dinner.

Seminars are not the time to catch up on emails. Seminars are not the time to plan your weekend or dinner. Seminars are not the time to shop online. Why are laptops in seminars no longer universally frowned upon? If students come to class just to multitask on their computers, failing to contribute meaningfully to our small seminar for the entire two hours, why even attend the seminar?

I am normally quite good at focusing and following a conversation, but recently in seminar, no matter where I sit, I cannot avoid the screens of my classmates. This overload of information neurologically disrupts my attention.

It gets worse when some students on their laptops try to covertly hide their text messages from me when I am sitting right next to them, and their offensively bright screen is currently blocking my view of the professor. Laptops have become an exclusive and irritating distractor.

Seminars, even those that meet weekly, rarely last longer than two hours at Yale. Is it impossible for the brightest students in the world to disconnect from our overstimulating devices for this short and manageable length of time to learn from courses that cost thousands of dollars?

Often, students argue that they simply prefer to take notes online. Call me old-fashioned, but there are few reasons why typing notes is necessary for the majority of students. I learned in my first semester at Yale in Brian Scholl’s “Introduction to Cognitive Science” lecture that, from a psychologically grounded perspective, class material is better learned and retained when written by hand.

A pen is cheap. Paper is cheaper. The rewards are clear: an engaged seminar and higher knowledge retention. I am asking for seminars with no laptops or phones. I want to sit at a circular table where we make eye contact and meaningfully engage with each other, the material and the professor. Am I asking for too much?

ABBY NISSLEY is a sophomore in Ezra Stiles College studying Global Affairs. She can be reached at abby.nissley@yale.edu.