Slate sits in on controversial 'Wasting Time on the Internet' course

Slate reporter Katy Waldman sat in on Penn's controversial "Wasting Time on the Internet" course. 

The class, a creative writing course, is taught by Penn professor Kenny Goldsmith. He had originally intended to have students do writing assignments, but got rid of them after realizing students were not producing interesting content, opting instead for in-class activities. "There's something wonderful about this dogged insistence on having nothing whatsoever to show for your time in class, especially given the cultural rage for productivity," writes Waldman. 

While sitting in on the class, Waldman took part in one of Goldsmith's class exercises that he called "30 seconds of heaven," in which the students rotated their laptops around the table and had 30 seconds to open whichever files they wanted on the person whose laptop they had. When Waldman got her laptop back, among the things she noticed was a note someone had written to her on a Word document and a search of the word "porn" on her Internet history. 

By the end of her visit, Waldman found that the class is just as intense, angering and intangible as its title suggests. "Moment to moment," she says, "it submerges you in a dull wash of useless noise. As a concept, it shimmers with just enough promise to make the underdelivery bite."

Read the full article at Slate. 

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