I'm sure the systemic defunding and dismantling of the public education system across the United States at the hands of Republican lawmakers over the same timeframe has absolutely nothing to do with it.

So who benefits from $30bn in spending on Laptops and Tablets? Oh Apple and Microsoft. Not students. Surprise surprise.

As with many of these articles there is a big caveat - Gen Z in the USA. It does not follow that this research applies across the world. It'd be interesting to see how other rich countries outcomes are different with their differing approaches to this. For example here in the UK I don't believe there has been a wholesale move to laptops/tablets for every student in schools. Technology is certainly used but it's not solely about students using laptops and tablets. Its things like smart wide boards, and the use of digital content to engage attention and so forth. Spending billions on laptops for all would be a scandal when school buildings need renewing for example.

I would hazard to suggest that the US education system is being corrupted in a similar way to other parts of the US state, with big expensive projects decided at state level by the Republicans and Democrats thanks to lobbying, benefiting big companies but not citizens. This is instead of money going to areas of proven benefit such as more teachers, school infrastructure renewal, or funding of homework clubs, after school activities, breakfast clubs or free school meals. Things proven to make a difference across the world but things that don't benefit big US corporations.

And lets be honest, if you wanted to give every student a laptop you wouldn't be going to Apple or Microsoft. You'd save money and go for generic hardware and a license free operating system like Linux. But that would be an anathema to both the Democrats and the Republicans, who have signed off huge spending on overpriced tech.

I suspect that if Gen Z designed their own cognitive tests, their tests would determine that we older generations were less cognitively capable than them.

The reality is that every generation adapts in different ways to fit their own cognitive circumstances, and one generation’s metric is at best an imperfect match for another—“cognitive capacity” can’t be objectively measured.

lol, I mostly ditched textbooks in high school not to support technology, but because I was tired of carrying around huge books in my backpack, the bulk of which I wouldn't even need on a daily basis. Lo and behold, even 14 years ago, I could find pdf versions of most of my textbooks, some of which were offered officially from the publisher for free via the school.

The problems are the enshittification of the internet, the attention economy and the superb lack of American educational system, not technology itself. Almost every university in the world is filled with the sounds of clacking keys from laptops, this isn't 1984.

• Correlation

• Causation

Hey, Computer, what's been happening to

• Average Class size
• Average teacher years of experience
• Average annual hours in school

Had it been?

• Up
• Down
• Down

But sure, also, they've replaced a stack of 5 lb textbooks nobody reads with a tablet computer nobody uses.

They really need to ban phones for students in grade school.

"But, they need them for safety!"

How the hell did we ever get along without every kid having an internet connected computer in their pocket since forever before they were invented? No, they don't need them for "safety".

"The kids are so smart they figured out this computer stuff I could never" - 75 yo Deborah, School District Superintendent

No Deborah, the kids had a mandatory computer literacy class which helped them understand the fundamentals of computing.

Key word "had"

I completely blame ChromeOS.

Even on AD snafu'd windows, the first thing we all did was figure out how to bypass any block and do what we wanted to.

Kids are growing up not knowing there are things you can do aside from accessing the internet and loading crappy webpages.

generation less cognitively capable than their parents

Once I have read the same complaint in a source from 120 years ago, and there they even stated that every generation has thought that about their youth since very long ago....

Citing Program for International Student Assessment data taken from 15-year-olds across the world and other standardized tests, Horvath noted not only dipping test scores, but also a stark correlation in scores and time spent on computers in school, such that more screen time was related to worse scores. He blamed students having unfettered access to technology that atrophied rather than bolstered learning capabilities. The introduction of the iPhone in 2007 also didn’t help.

“This is not a debate about rejecting technology,” Horvath wrote. “It is a question of aligning educational tools with how human learning actually works. Evidence indicates that indiscriminate digital expansion has weakened learning environments rather than strengthened them.”

...

Classroom technology usage has ballooned in recent years. A 2021 EdWeek Research Center poll of 846 teachers found 55% said they are spending one to four hours per day with educational tech. Another quarter reported using the digital tools five hours per day.

The mistake was a bunch of people who learned how to use computers as adults thinking that the only way to learn how to use a computer is to do so from a young age, in non-vocational ways.

Doesn’t make sense, does it?

Surely more blame for dumber kids falls on the Republican push to remove actual science from textbooks, than the format in which they are delivered.

Well hopefully those planning curriculums learn from this. Until then, computers at school and books at home. Turning luddite home schooling is not gonna help

First generation not better, brighter, more adaptable than the prior generation. Fitting, given everything else.

An entry level laptop pays for itself if you use it to get textbooks for free after a certain amount of time. The question is can you do it legally? Probably not. So where is the cost savings supposed to be?

That’s what the parasite pedofile class wants they want ignorant feudal serfs

We should be investing in teachers not technology.

Kind of hard to take the article seriously when it ends with:

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I studied things without technology. I take notes on pen and paper, and i hate having to do online tests too. I like my printed documents and physical books. Many students will say the same, and i also tend to dislike the trend to digitise every and each aspect of learning. The truth out there is that analog classrooms work better than this chromebook hellhole, but many of you are not ready to hear that. Technology is also the problem.