>> campus newspaper's website being down for few hours is no big deal anyway I'm glad you didn't work for my campus newspaper. Several other people have echoe

>> campus newspaper's website being down for few hours is no big deal anyway I'm glad you didn't work for my campus newspaper. Several other people have echoed your comment that these are things that you can just as easily handle on your phone. But I think that misses the bigger point. If a professor can ban laptops, he can ban phones and tablets and all other communication devices. My overarching point is that devoting 100% of one's attention to a college lecture is not only not always necessary, but in some cases, not desirable; there are legitimate reasons why a student attending a lecture may want to receive communications, and legitimate reasons why he may wish to respond to those communications immediately.