By the time I finish writing this article, you will have cost me $1000. Dear reader, that is how much you mean to me. I hope you remember this next time I come banging down your door at 2:00 a.m. seeking a shoulder to cry on because the door I banged on at 1:55 a.m. spurned my semi-coherent propositioning.

After each sentence I write in this column — or every five words for long sentences such as this one — I pause to check Nytimes.com (Generation Q! Friedman, you’re a genius), Facebook.com (20 of my friends have changed their profile pictures, better examine each) and my email (the 1:55 door that didn’t open still hasn’t written back). The problem is, I’m currently in class. I should be paying attention to the professor in front of me, to whom I’ve paid $1000 to explain the “Charming Betsy” doctrine of statutory interpretation.

Surfing the Internet during class would have been inconceivable when I was an undergrad, and not only because Al Gore hadn’t invented it yet. My parents raised me to believe that class time was no time for distraction — and certainly no time for fun. Instead, it was a solemn period during which I raced to write down everything the teacher said, be the first to raise my hand, and ignore any and all feelings of lust that I may have had for that girl I always made it a point to sit next to because she smelled like masala dosai. (As per my parents’ instruction, such passionate thoughts were only to be entertained after I became a tenure-track CS professor or head neurosurgeon at a major hospital.)

How have I allowed myself to stray from that professionally fruitful, yet romantically barren, path? When did class time become a time for idle chatting, watching the magic unfold on Neiman Marcus Online and googling ex-girlfriends? Is there any hope for redemption?

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Sorry. Quick nap on the keyboard. Hope no one noticed. Where were we?

Oh, yeah, not focusing in class.

Well, the first thing I can say in my defense is that before I could instantaneously track the latest shoe arrivals at Neiman Marcus — a Tory Bruch Mirrored Croc-Embossed Wedge, for those who are interested — I had other ways of keeping my mind occupied during class. High among them were pondering what to do with those barely noticeable patches of hair on my fingers, mentally reliving the time in high school when I ran a 4:50 mile (true story) and trying to prove the Hodge Conjecture, which, as I asked Jeeves between the last sentence and this one, relates the algebraic topology of a non-singular complex algebraic variety and the subvarieties of that variety.

Point is, even without a computer, I generally drifted off into alternate consciousness whenever the moment dictated.

Moreover, psychological research clearly demonstrates that we learn new information best when we maintain a certain level of base arousal. If we drop below that level, we aren’t paying enough attention, and if we get too worked up about Betsy’s Charms, then our neurons will be firing so often as to prevent us from focusing. Thus, in those special classes that just don’t rub us the right way, computers help maintain enough excitement not to fall asleep. (I think we’d all agree that this digital solution is better than any one we might implement manually.)

Lastly, but surely not least (cue sanguine music), maybe class time, like all the time we have on God’s green Earth, should be used in a way that most leads to our own fulfillment. If listening to your professor in that class required for your major makes you want to poke yourself in the eye with a sharpened stick, maybe we’re all better off if you occupy yourself with the thrilling inanities of cyberspace instead. I certainly think so, and your eye would heartily agree.

To help make Vishnu feel justified for blowing a grand on you, drop him a line.