Bad for the brain: Kids are learning less in high-tech schools

Educational technology is bad for kids' brains, argues neuroscientist Jared Cooney Horvath in The Free Press. The article is an excerpt from his new book, The Digital Delusion.

Starting around the year 2000, "many key measures of cognitive development — from literacy and numeracy to deep creativity and general IQ" -- began falling, he writes. The downturn seems to be accelerating for Gen Alpha.

"Why are so many kids learning less?" Horvath asks. He blames too much screen time in school.

He agrees with those who argue that children's mental health has been harmed by smartphones, social media and overprotective parenting. But that doesn't explain the "cognitive collapse," Horvath writes. "Why are so many kids learning less?"

Traditional learning has been replaced by digital tools of unproven worth, he argues.

"More than half of all students now use a computer at school for one to four hours each day, and a full quarter spend more than four hours on screens during a typical seven-hour school day," he writes. Researchers estimate that students drift off task for up to 38 minutes of every hour on classroom devices.

The Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) asks 15-year-old students in dozens of countries how much time they spent using digital devices during a typical school day, he writes. "The more screens children use at school, the lower achievement falls." That's confirmed by other "major national and international tests across math, science, and reading" and by "more than 25 years of academic, clinical, and classroom research."

Horvath urges parents to print out their children's assignments, so they can work on paper rather than on screens, and to lobby for the right to opt their children out of screen use at school. Finally, they should demand that schools justify the use of new digital tools, asking to see "independent, replicated research showing it improves learning." If there's no research, he writes, "ask for a clear, evidence-based rationale that answers three questions: What specific problem does this tool solve? How will it improve learning, not just logistics? Why is this the best available solution?"