The laptop takeover of the world is well under way. Just about everywhere you look, you see one. In the office, at home, on a train commuting to work, there they are. Laptops, laptops everywhere. These devices can be time savers, can amuse a child of any age and can just make life easier in general. Yet, are they the wonder-item many people make them out to be?

If you’ve bumped into someone with a laptop case over one shoulder, a briefcase in hand and juggling a cup of coffee, you may answer an emphatic “No.” What about those people using laptops in a waiting room, that have spread stuff from here to eternity? Aren’t they annoying?

However, for a parent trying to finish a last-minute project in order to make a child’s school play, laptops are heaven sent. Even though it may bug a fellow passenger, that laptop user on the train feverishly clicking away at keys may be using the convenience of laptops so that he or she can coach a child’s baseball game.

Now that laptops no longer weigh about thirty pounds and aren’t twenty feet square (okay, that’s a little exaggeration), it’s easier than ever to cart one around. Some of the deluxe model laptops have a full-sized screen, a monstrous amount of memory and weigh less than two pounds. For someone who grew up prior to a computer in every classroom, this technology is amazing.

Of course, no matter how fascinating it is to think about the portability of laptops, there should be some concern about making work so portable. Conceivably you could take a bath and work at the same time, though that would seem to defeat the purpose of a relaxing soak. Now that you can work from anywhere, are today’s employees expected to do more work?

Maybe. Deadlines seem to be shorter, workloads higher and people worry about work constantly. Can this be blamed on laptops? Perhaps the problem lies with employees who have used such technology to accomplish more, faster, in an attempt to get ahead. Bosses come to expect the increase in production to become the new baseline.

It would seem to be an impossible conundrum, much like the question about which came first, the chicken or the egg. While telecommunication advances have shrunk the world, without laptops the pace at which employees need to work might not have changed.

Of course, laptops are not only for the workplace. Students at college swear by them, being able to take notes, write papers and talk to friends all at the same time. What a change from days gone by.

Laptops are in great use at home too. They take up significantly less room than a desktop and generally have the same capability. For someone in a small apartment or crowded house, a laptop may be the difference between having a computer and not having one.

No matter how you feel about laptops, they - and their successors - will be around for a long time. And if you think laptops are everywhere now, just wait as technology improves through the years to come. Eventually, the invasion will be complete.