The world at your fingertips

For most college students, an important part of hostel life is their laptop. Other than the fact that it is their window to the Internet — an information explosion in itself — it has also become the replacement of television in their lives.

The most common college phenomenon is the exchange of movies, TV shows, software, games, and what not using pen drives and hard drives.

A lot of students own large collections of things that interest them and can be viewed or used on their laptop to “kill time”.

“My laptop’s plugged in all day long and is constantly downloading a mass of torrents, consisting mostly of TV shows, old Cartoon Network shows, classic sitcoms and, obviously, movies. I also need to keep finding new games and music,” shares Adam Fredie, a student of HKBK College of Engineering.

He adds that he uses Photoshop extensively and does part-time web development coding as well.

“It isn’t really education related. Having a laptop of your own means that you can use software like FL Studio, which allows you to create music in the absence of the instruments! There’s a world of possibility in there,” he adds.

Presently, shows like ‘The Big Bang Theory’, ‘How I Met Your Mother’, ‘The Newsroom’, ‘Breaking Bad’ and ‘Sherlock’ seem to be doing the rounds in college hostels. “Nobody wants to watch Indian shows because they are too dramatic. There was a time when every second show was a sitcom and so, youngsters started trying out other genres like crime and mystery. British humour is also becoming quite popular,” observes Sana, from Christ College.

But one thing is certain — laptops are not being used for studies or college work. “We are given our module notes as hard copies and so, we don’t need to study on our laptops. My friends and I do refer to the internet if we have a doubt. But that’s about it,” notes Abhay Sudheendran, who is pursuing management studies at Sri Bhagawan Mahaveer Jain College.

“It’s convenient to have a laptop because I don’t know what to do when I go home after college. I usually watch really old TV shows like ‘That 70s Show’ and ‘Fresh Prince of Bel Air’ on my Mac,” he adds.

Another aspect of this trend is live streaming, which has made it possible to watch the latest cricket match or film awards or even the royal wedding in the comfort of one’s own room as long — as you have access to the Internet and a laptop, that is.