New generation of what?

At a recent faculty meeting, debate raged over two topics: student use of laptops and video recording of lectures. On one side of the debate, lecturers tell students to shut their laptops and put them away because, in their experience, students using mobile devices are on social networking sites, emailing or playing games rather than attending to the lecture. Opposing academics actively encourage students to bring them to class so they can undertake internet searches, have online debates, access experts on lecture themes and use electronic rather than printed textbooks. These academics argued that as most high schools now have laptop or tablet programs, students would be going pedagogically backward rather than forward in coming to a university where mobile devices are banned.