The U.S. spent $30 billion to ditch textbooks for laptops and tablets: The result is the first generation less cognitively capable than their parents | Fortune
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Neuroscientist Jared Cooney Horvath said older generations “screwed up” giving students access to so much technology: “I genuinely hope Gen Z quickly figures that out and gets mad.”

In 2002, Maine became the first state to implement a statewide laptop program to some grade levels. Then-governor Angus King saw the program as a way to put the internet at the fingertips of more children, who would be able to immerse themselves in information.

By that fall, the Maine Learning Technology Initiative had distributed 17,000 Apple laptops to seventh graders across 243 middle schools. By 2016, those numbers had multiplied to 66,000 laptops and tablets distributed to Maine students.

King’s initial efforts have been mirrored across the country. In 2024, the U.S. spent more than $30 billion putting laptops and tablets in schools. But more than a quarter-century and numerous evolving models of technology later, psychologists and learning experts see a different outcome than the one King intended. Rather than empowering the generation with access to more knowledge, the technology had the opposite effect.

  • Manjushri@piefed.socialEnglish
    101·
    11 hours ago

    That is brought up near the end of the article.

    While teachers may be intending for these tools to be strictly educational, students often have different ideas. According to a 2014 study, which surveyed and observed 3,000 university students, students engaged in off-task activities on their computers nearly two-thirds of the time.

    Horvath blamed this tendency to get off-track as a key contributor to technology hindering learning. When one’s attention is interrupted, it takes time to refocus. Task-switching also is associated with weaker memory formation and greater rates of error. Grappling with a challenging singular subject matter is hard, Horvath said. For the best learning to happen, it’s supposed to be.

    “Unfortunately, ease has never been a defining characteristic of learning,” he said. “Learning is effortful, difficult, and oftentimes uncomfortable. But it’s the friction that makes learning deep and transferable into the future.”

    Sustained attention to a singular subject is anathema to how technology today has been deployed, argues Jean Twenge, San Diego State University psychology professor studying generational differences and the author of 10 Rules for Raising Kids in a High-Tech World. More time on screens isn’t just ineffective in facilitating learnings; it’s counterproductive.

    “Many apps, including social media and gaming apps, are designed to be addictive,” Twenge told Fortune. “Their business model is based on users spending the most time possible on the apps, and checking back as frequently as possible.”

    • kshade@lemmy.worldEnglish
      2·
      6 hours ago

      Learning is effortful, difficult, and oftentimes uncomfortable.

      It doesn’t have to be. Rote memorization always is for me, but that’s not really learning. And you can focus on just about anything when the alternative is a shitty textbook poorly explaining something that just won’t click with you. Look out the window, doodle, count the ceiling tiles, daydream about not being stuck in school, …

      • Lemmy World@lemmy.world
        1·
        2 hours ago

        The burden of proof is on you for your claim.

        Why does learning not need to be effortful or not difficult or not oftentimes uncomfortable?