Jared Cooney Horvath, a neuroscientist and former teacher, is calling for a reduction in screen use in schools, arguing that educational technology is undermining how children learn and develop. In his book, The Digital Delusion, he writes: “This might be one of the hardest truths our generation has to face.”
Declining cognitive abilities
Horvath claims that “our children are less cognitively capable than we were at their age.” He points to a reversal of generational progress that began around the year 2000, with IQ scores falling across the west even as time spent in school increased. He attributes this decline to the “meteoric rise of educational technology.”
According to a recent Department for Education report, the UK educational technology market generates an annual turnover of about £6.5bn. In the US, Horvath says, it is a $400bn (£295bn) mega-industry.
Impact of Covid and Pisa data
Horvath notes that the uptake of laptops in schools, especially in the US, began in earnest in 2010-12, and that Covid forced a digital pivot. “But when Covid finished you would assume they’d rip that Band-Aid off, but the vast majority of schools didn’t,” he said. In the US, 88% of school districts now have one-to-one computers.
He cites Pisa data from 2012, 2015, and 2018, which showed that the more time students spent on screens at school, the further their scores fell. “On average, those who used computers for more than six hours per day scored 66 points lower than their peers who didn’t use them at all,” Horvath said.
Expert responses
Rose Luckin, emerita professor at the UCL Knowledge Lab, acknowledges that “a great deal of educational technology was sold on promises rather than proof,” but cautions against correlation being confused with causation. She notes that “moderate school device use is associated with better results than no school device use.”
Daisy Christodoulou, director of education at No More Marking, agrees that society has been “a bit blase” about the impact of new technologies, but is more optimistic about the potential for technology and AI in upper secondary. Dylan Wiliam, emeritus professor at the UCL Institute of Education, says that while technology may harm achievement, correlational studies cannot support causal claims, and that many well-designed studies show positive impacts. “The question we need to be asking is, ‘when does edtech help learning?’ And the answer is, ‘it’s complicated’,” he said.
