Our Obsession With Technology Is Destroying Our Kids

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I started teaching at my current school about 15 years ago. It was the school’s first year fully implementing its new technology plan. Each student would receive a MacBook, and we were to use them in every class period.

Every teacher training I went to for years was about how to better integrate technology. As a young man who didn’t have regular access to a computer until college, I found this plan almost unbelievable and extremely generous. These kids, even the poor ones like me, would grow up with skills and opportunities I never experienced.

Fast forward 15 years, and I’m trying to convince the principal that we need less technology in the classroom. The kids are dependent on the computers.

Every year, I have more students who can’t read their own handwriting. I don’t mean they were writing quickly and couldn’t understand a word they scribbled. I mean, their baseline handwriting is so poor they can’t understand most of what they write.

I have students who cannot think critically. When they are asked a question, their default is to use AI to answer it. The most extreme case of this is when I asked a student to describe themselves, and they attempted to ask AI.

Class discussion has dwindled to monosyllabic responses or regurgitated AI dribble.

It is so dystopian and so obvious to me, yet the district pushes forward with its AI commands.

I’m one guy. What do I know? Experts are working on this stuff. They have information to which I am not privy.

Luckily, Dr. Jared Cooney Horvath doesn’t have my mindset. He did the research, and in his book The Digital Delusion: How Classroom Technology Harms Our Kids’ Learning — And How To Help Them Thrive Again, Horvath exposes the truth.

Standards

“Our children are less cognitively capable than we were at their age” (Horvath xv).

This is something many of us have complained about after a long day of teaching. My peers and I are always reminded that we were the exceptions as children….

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