Zachariah Ventress, a teaching assistant for Marketing 101, sits in the back of the lecture hall on Mondays, privy to a view of students' laptop screens.
"Most are checking their e-mail, instant messaging and [browsing] on Facebook," he said.
As a result, Ventress says he and other TAs have requested that laptops not be used during recitations.
He explained that the policy was for students' own good, since class participation counts for their final grade.
Classical Studies professor Campbell Grey said he is well aware that students often use their laptops for things other than schoolwork while in class.
"My suspicious mind leads me to believe they are surfing the Web or doing other things at some point," Grey said.
And the problem, a side effect of the availability of wireless Internet in most campus buildings, is not unique to Penn.
A study conducted by Cornell University in 2001 found that laptops may actually cause students' grades to drop.
The study divided Cornell students into two groups, gave them laptops and monitored their online activities.
In traditional lecture-style classes, those who spent the most time surfing the Web earned the lowest grades.
However, this trend was reversed in communication classes, where students used sources from the Web to help them with coursework.
Communication class or not, students at Penn say the benefits of using laptops in class outweigh the potential harms.
"I use my laptop in every single lecture class," said College freshman David Gottlieb. "My handwriting is too messy."
Gottlieb admitted to visiting video-sharing Web site YouTube.com but said it ties in with lectures.
"In certain communication classes, where we're talking about media and production, I sometimes show other students examples of what the professor is talking about on YouTube."
College sophomore David Wolfish likewise brings his laptop to classes that involve a lot of notetaking and admitted that he sometimes gets distracted by it.
"But no more than I normally would" without a laptop, he added. "I stop writing sometimes because I'm tired."
College freshman Benjamin Brooke said more laptops in classes were due in part to more online assignments.
"I think people bring them so they don't have to print [readings] out," he said.
And regardless of whether it's a smart idea to mix computers with class, some say the use of laptops should be enhanced, not limited.
"I regret that students cannot use laptops during exams," said Communication professor Joseph Turow. "In some sense we're in a primitive era, where people are still taking written exams in class."
Penn Law School, he added, already has a policy that allows students to take exams online, with certain safeguards in place to prevent cheating.
