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.
As a society, we chose to only teach ONE FUCKING GENERATION how to use technology and then went “well, young people ‘just understand’ technology, we don’t need to teach it anymore” and then somehow decided to just give all the kids a fucking tablet or laptop and assume they would LEARN THROUGH OSMOSIS I GUESS? Meanwhile we are defunding education across the country to absolutely shameful lows. (yes, I’m focused on the USA - I doubt “Cooney Horvath” is basing this broad generalization meant to scare people into buying his books on a study of ALL CHILDREN ALL OVER THE WORLD) AND THEN we let tech-bro-oligarchs decide EVERYTHING related to tech for two entire fucking decades and are just SHOCKED they did the thing that was best for profits, not the children (whose lives it was actively ruining for profit).
BUT YES, JARED HORNY CORVATH, your astute observations PROVE it was the fault of the LAPTOP that the next generations are “INHERANTLY DUMBER” (feels like a dog whistle, I dunno for what - but it’s trying to justify something, I can feel it in my bones).
THIS. PREACH. I couldn’t say it better myself. Abso-friggin-lutely.
“Technology” is SUCH an abused word by these absolute simpletons. “Technology” didn’t cause this. They did what they always do: They thoughtlessly expect their false god, The Market, to somehow organically solve the problem of education and human betterment, if only we sacrifice enough money to it.
Giving kids laptops? MAYBE, right? Huge MAYBE. Ask any generation if elementary schoolers on unsupervised internet connections was a good friggin idea.
But tablets and Chromebooks?! GTFO. Right out. Those things are barely “technology.” They’re consumption devices optimized primarily to make ongoing profit from their users.
In 95% of cases, I’ll wager, nobody’s getting hands-on learning from a friggin iPad or Chromebook. Trying to “replace” standard desktops with those things collectively killed a huge chunk of our cognitive abilities as a society.
we let tech-bro-oligarchs decide EVERYTHING related to tech for two entire fucking decades and are just SHOCKED they did the thing that was best for profits, not the children (whose lives it was actively ruining for profit).
ONE. HUNDRED. PERCENT.
So many usability decisions and standards were coming from public univerisities and publicly transparent nonprofits. (Why we have an Internet that’s open source at its core, for instance. But I have a lot to research…) Even privately, standards were about the benefit of the users, rather than
“Let’s copy every decision Apple makes because look at their stonk price and slavishly drooling fanbase.”
My mom used to be awesome with our Windows 95 Packard Bell. She used internet forums, she figured out eBay when it was brand new, she ran DXDiag when games weren’t working. She knew how to freaking DEFRAG the thing.
Now she struggles and panics to do the most basic thing if it’s not 1-step on her iPhone. It’s tragic. Heartbreaking. And I hate them for it.
We let the filthy marketers from packaged goods and casino industries run amok in tech, and that’s how we got here : Tech is largely not the incredible new tools we dreamed of to live better lives, instead its often closer to smoking and gambling .
If you let marketers take over anything , unregulated, it inevitably takes the form of toxic vice, because our poorest choices make them the richest.
Mainstream technology doesn’t connect us, it isolates us. It doesn’t educate us, it actively endeavors to make us stupid . Every freaking bit of bandwidth reaching our eyeballs on the mainstream net is dedicated to reducing “friction” to rob our wallets and personal data.
I’m INFURIATED that most people can’t even handle organizing a file system anymore. Only private schools seem to teach actual computer education, and they all bought into this stupid lie that the “future” is cloud subscriptions served on brainrot e-waste.
I feel like we need to start “desktop computer clubs” or something. Seeing this crap like they’re trying to extinguish the personal computer is basically a declaration of war in my book…
My mom used to be awesome with our Windows 95 Packard Bell […] Now she struggles and panics to do the most basic thing if it’s not 1-step on her iPhone.
Hey, pardon me if I’m overstepping, but I’m going through the evaluation process with my mom right now and this could be an early sign of dementia (one that we initially dismissed). It could be nothing, but it might be a good idea to get her checked out if you have any other reason to be concerned.
Hey there! You’re not overstepping at all and in fact your concern is heartwarming, I sincerely appreciate it.
I’ve kinda had this concern before but…I don’t really see it…yet? Honestly, I think it really is just a result of “skill rust” from how computing has changed and normies moved their lives to their iPhones.
I also notice this trend with many people, but boomers especially, where if they aren’t already good at something, they just drop it and find the easiest most convenient solution, rather than risk learning something. =\
She basically stopped using a traditional PC like after the Win7 days pretty much, if that. The thing that really sucks is I try to encourage her to do more challenging things with her brain, like play adventure games and stuff like we used to, but after we lost my dad she basically just takes care of her house and her dog, exercises, and watches (a lot of “reality”, ugh) TV…
I signed her up for a library card too, because audiobooks are fun and brain stimulating, but I don’t think she’s bothered. This is a real sore spot with me. :(
might be a good idea to get her checked out
So…I dunno. How the heck do you even bring this up? Is it something they could just screen for? It really couldn’t hurt, I suppose.
Because I’ve heard all the stories, and that stuff is no joke. It’s absolutely brutal. She’s living in another state right now, so it isn’t easy to just trot on over there. :(
Would love to know how you managed to get your mom to bother with any of it.
I hope everything is going okay with your mom. Lots of love and prayers for her! <3
straight facts.
the vacuum of responsible leadership/sane regulations opened the doors for corporations to colonize every corner of online activity. they have run amok with behavior-changing technologies. rather than implementing these new tools thoughtfully in the classroom (and at home), idiotic people wrote enormous checks to Apple and Microsoft, Google and other vendors, assuming that the kids would just, ya know, figure it out. magically, somehow.
a separate but related thought: we need to recognize that:
-
how kids use personal devices at home shapes their usage patterns at school. if their only reference point for what a “computer” is and does is unlimited brainrot attention baiting consumption, then guess what? they will see these devices purely as entertainment/addiction machines and nothing more.
-
kids mimic their parents behavior. if parents are zonked out all night mindlessly binging endless short form content and tv shows, they will come to understand that behavior as “normal” and “appropriate” and even “good”. society at large (and some parents) think kids must abide by different expectations than the ones they place on adults. kids know that’s hypocritical bullshit and will either emulate the bad behavior (with post hoc rationalizations) or resent the behavior (with maladaptations/ internalized guilt or resentment).
-
moreover, I’m convinced the entire reason my generation (millennials) turned out to be tech-savvy was because adults didn’t understand it, were trying to control and curtail our usage, and we were mostly focused on finding ways to circumvent boomer and gen-x meddling in our usage.
Nah that’s not it. People who used computers in the 50s, 60s and 70s were tech savvy. But that was just a small percentage of the population.
When mass adoption of computers started in the late eighties, through the nineties and early 00s computers needed a lot of tinkering and care in their usage.
People were forced to use their brains to use the computer and learn tech skills. Then computers started to become a lot more streamlined and people didn’t have to put as much thought into using them. It parallels cars and TVs, just in a more complex system.
People who used computers in the 60s were more tech savvy than people who used computers in the 70s who were more savvy than those in the 80s who were better at computers than those in the 90s and so on. Because they had to learn more to use them and take care of them.
New tech (like the web) meant you had to get used to new stuff, which younger people do better than older people.
But if you speak to a boomer who has kept up with the technology you can bet that they are more capable and have more knowledge about tech than us millennials.
With cars, I don’t get it we’ve even collectively given up standard maintenance. When I tell people I did my own oil change or change my brake pads, they look at me like I’m some sort of magician or Tim Taylor. It’s like, dudes, you’re supposed to be doing it yourself – it’s not hard. And it costs me $40 to diy an oil change compared to $100 for a Quick Lube. Brake pads are a little more difficult, but also are standard maintenance and totally possible. Cost savings of diy vs shop there is hundreds of dollars.
I’ve not met boomers that have kept up on tech. In fact, all of the boomers I know now use tech like the Gen Z kids.
I was once in a room with a boomer, I’m a Millennial, and a Gen Zer. I said, “your generation invented the tech, my generation perfected it, and your generation takes it all for granted.”
deleted by creator
ive seen parents give phones to toddlers watching on the phones, ipads just to shut them up. defunding is mostly done by republicans, underfunding is pretty everywhere else, even in pretty decent blue areas. the money goes to admin/bureaucracy and redtaping teachers. the books, i recently saw students at my former hs, from 10+years ago sitll using the same kind of book( the blue book for chemistry edition), but they need to use newer books with updated info.
Nailed it. This is equally true for many countries beyond the US.
That poor child in the stock photo getting shown for an article on how children are getting dumber…
That being said, the reason why children are getting ‘dumber’ is probably because a) education is getting less money every year b) social media is destroying their attention span c) intelligence isn’t valued enough by society
At no point is getting a notebook part of the problem. Young people need to learn how to use technology.
Problem: we’re not spending enough on educators to teach kids
News Articles: we paid apple 10 billion dollars but the laptops made these kids dumber.
deleted by creator
I have a degree in computer engineering. I have been coding since the 80’s.
I learn better with pencil and paper. Most people do. Schools need to go back to that. Have computer labs but don’t do everything on computers all damn day.
I’m 23 and got a CS degree last year. When I was in highschool my CS teacher had us writing Java on paper with pencil. At the time I thought it was the stupidest thing but in hindsight there definitely are certain benefits to it. The best CS professor I had in college was also having us do certain things with pencil and paper and he strictly forbid it being done any other way.
Educational studies have backed this up. You learn more when writing than typing and by reading print media than digital. The digital tools should still exist but you also need to use the analog ones.
I get the writhing because of muscle memory but reading is reading…
Books are tactile and involve more of your perception.
That tracks, although I’d compare them with ereaders instead of screens.
We are more distractible when reading on digitsl devices though. Perhaps with the exception of dedicated ebook readers.
In addition to fhat I wonder if eInk and actual paper are more conducive to prolonged reading as well, less eye strain
Also… keep in mind that when kids read internet articles they are picking up on terrible grammar and all around insane ways to form sentences in general. Look at all the uptalking females from just seeing others do it. Crap catches on easily. Nobody is proof reading anything online.
Agreed! I also have CS degrees and got them before having computers in the classroom was the norm. We had all our exams on pen and paper, you would have to write out a lot of lines of code and make sure it was proper C in the flavor we learnt in that class. Most of our classes were all books, paper and overhead projectors. We did have classes with computers, but they were awful. Our class would be two hours and at about the one hour mark you needed to be sure you were compiling. The compilation could easily take more than 30 mins and if you fucked up or it simply crashed you’d be at the end of the class easily.
I have a masters in Embedded Systems design, so a lot of my studies focused on both the hardware and software. We needed to juggle bits and extract the absolute max out of our very limited hardware. We needed to know about how software could even work on the hardware and why it worked the way it worked. Why hardware shaped the software and vice versa. I feel with the billion abstraction layers these days people are missing a lot of fundamentals about software design.
I also remember half of our classes were various forms of maths. All of those the first year first class started with a variation of: “Forget everything you’ve learned about maths so far, this is something completely different”. And each and every time it was true as well, blew my mind. A lot of those maths I still use very often and I feel like modern programming classes don’t focus enough on those.
On the other hand, I’m an old fart and it feels very “Everything was better when I was young”. So don’t take my opinion too seriously, but it is genuinely how I feel about it.
A core moment of my life was when, late at night, doing homework for assembly class, I finally GOT that “The instruction is the data is the number”. I would be surprised if students today have an opportunity to get to that realization.
I’m just gonna toss this out there…
You old fucks1 are siding with someone non-ironically named “Cooney Horvath” who, btw, is trying to sell books on how best to teach. Hoodwinked I say. Absolutely hoodwinked. “Everyone knows you can’t learn math unless you have an abacus!” “They expect to be able to learn spelling and writing without a chalk board tablet? Preposterous!”
1 - Used as a term of endearment.
“Everyone knows you can’t learn math unless you have an abacus!”
I know this is an exaggeration for emphasis… but people who learn the abacus method are faster and more accurate at basic addition.
That’s just not true. People don’t learn with pencil or computer better - a single tool does not shape the learning experience. Sure pencil has positive effects stimulating muscles while learning but it has a billion of negative effects too.
[citation needed]
It’s actual on people to cite that pencil is somehow better but somehow all research never yields any results. Hmm I wonder why. Maybe because learning efficiency doesn’t revolve around a single tool that is being used, weird I know.
[citation needed]
also: you made a claim that “People don’t learn with pencil or computer better”, and that claim needs backing up with facts.
no it’s the other way around dummy. The default state is neutrality and if you have a claim that something veers of it then you have to substantiate it.
there’s no such thing as a default assumption of “neutrality”. straight up not a thing that exists.
what does exist, and what you’re mosst likely mixing up here, is the mediocrity principle. that’s en entirely different concept and has nothing to do with “neutrality”, because no such concept exists in scientific contexts.
“neutral” is not a concept in nature, so it’s not a concept in research either.
there was for a long time a similar concept for U.S. broadcasters, where they were obligated to try and provide balanced reporting, but that also has nothing to do with research.
if you can provide a source for that “neutrality” claim, I’d be thrilled to learn something new! but for now that’s yet another [citation needed]
What are you even talking about. So you by default assume position that pencil learning is good and ask someone to disapprove it? Don’t you see flaw here? Smh
I honestly blame the software we use. It’s made to be profitable, not to educate. Every fucking article is full of bullshit “click here!” for profit.
Where is the global and universal app to learn fucking everything? That teaches you, lets you read unlimited textbooks (oh piracy!) or science papers, quizzes you, scores you, lets you compete with others, gives you a diploma that is worth something?
Why do we expect an internet that has been captured by capitalism and is algorithmically tuned to maximize profit and brainwashing to be good for intelligence? That is what advertising is brainwashing, and it ru(i)ns everything.
PS: Of course, I have no idea how good online learning resources of schools actually are. I’m just going to assume they are abyssal. Because why wouldn’t they be terrible.
I learned a lot because there was friction in the tools. There’s a point where „accessible“ software (and I don’t mean accessible in the sense of making it usable with screen readers and other disability support) becomes detrimental. Like the complete abstraction that mobile devices have from a filesystem now - many younger people can’t use a hierarchical file explorer as a result.
Yeah that’s definitely true, IT systems becoming too easy to use. They should have given the students raspberry PIs and some wire and mechanical switches instead of McBooks, let them build their own laptops lol.
Blame the parents that have abdicated their responsibility to raise their children and outsource that to screens.
My kids have grown up with screens since birth, but our going-into-fourth-grader has a 12th grade reading level and our going-into-second-grader has an 11th grade reading level because we make teaching them at home a priority.
They both score way above grade level in math and science as well. Their teachers constantly say they can tell which parents actually make their kids education a priority and which parents don’t give a shit and expect the teachers to do it all.
Let’s apply some critical thinking here. You’re saying your 7yr old has the reading comprehension of a 17yr old. I don’t buy that. I read voraciously as a child and in 7th grade I had an 11th grade reading level. I have a 7yr old who reads voraciously and they are nowhere near an 11th grade level. They rarely get screen time either. Education is a huge priority for us as well, but 11th grade reading level at 7? That ain’t real.
Probably this says more about this specific school district and what they expect of their students than about the reading comprehension a child compared to an adolescent.
I mean believe it or don’t. I don’t give a shit lol. It’s true. I was the same way as a kid, far ahead of all of my peers with a high school reading level in first grade, twice in school scored the highest in the state for standardized testing for my grade. I even got two little trophies from the state for it.
Their mom is an insane reader as well, and clocks 100+ books a year.
They got a great head start with genetics, but we’ve also put a ton of effort into fostering that.
Well done. Did you limit screen time and got them to read physical books and such? And yeah, it’s definitely impossible without parenting, but you also need the right “tools” or learning environment and software. I don’t think that exists, at least not as open source / non commercial.
Yeah they are limited on their screen time. They have to do an hour of reading before they can do any fun screen time, then they can do whatever until bed as long as homework is done.
At bedtime they have to be in bed, but can use their kindles to read until 10 when they automatically lock on them.
IMO, in the US
- Common core replaced a better curriculum. Courses seem dumbed down and doesn’t really prepare you anymore for college maths
- Grades were extremely inflated during covid because obviously students would not be motivated to study
- Grades are a lot lenient now. Most classes are passing people that would’ve previously been considered a fail
- AI was touted as a replacement for thinking and had repercussions when students started using it to just do all the work
- School is increasingly a for profit system now. Most colleges are increasing tuition without improving classes, and attracting enrollment by touting the hollywood college life experience.
- There’s a lot of negativity in the younger generation, especially as those who see their older siblings fail to find anything in the job market. What’s the point of college if it can’t land you a good job?
So you’re saying the lockdowns had long term negative effects… Interesting 🤔
As opposed to the massacre of an uncurbed pandemic
(Also, those effects don’t exist in a vacuum, and without much in the way of an attempt to mitigate them, the knock-on effects become more severe than they would have to.)
Like with most things, there’s always a price to an action
Lockdowns are important to curb infection and protect vulnerable people. Did it have long term negative effects? Yes, that’s inevitable. Could we have handled both the lockdown and post lockdown better? Sure. But protecting people heavily outweighs the consequences.
Students aren’t being disadvantaged by the availability or even the reliance on technology.
They’re being disadvantaged by not being taught (or in most cases even allowed) to interact with said technology in challenging and enlightening ways.
Would expect nothing better than such jumping to shallow conclusions from the chronically out of touch rag Fortune, though.
Exactly.
As if, what, are kids gonna be making their own websites with HTML by just handing them some content-consumption appliance? Yeah, right!
I know some kids who are actually using technology well, and learning valuable skills, building their own gaming machines and stuff.
They’re usually in private school or educated households though. As usual, everybody else “fell through.”
We need to bring proper computing education back, but Techbro Valley hijacked our schools to train future dependent idiot consumers. Kids have been getting robbed.
It breaks my heart. I had to work in a public library for a long time as a computer lab assistant, and it was soul-sucking how many people of ANY generation were just absolutely clueless. Functionally illiterate. Zero problem solving neural pathways.
It didn’t have to be like this. I’m very passionate about this subject, apparently lol, but I have no idea what to actually do about it…
The market is full of things like raspberry PIs (too expensive to start up right now), arduinos, ESP32, and so on. Python only gets easier to learn. Are these things truly not in use anywhere, or are the successes not being reported on?
I guess I read here about a case where a company was blowing through LLM tokens because people were using them to convert PDFs, so maybe it’s just not sticking.
YES. The only piece of technology ever thaught by schools are a fixed set of google & microsoft products.
It would’ve been so great if for at least once say “We don’t have microsoft word tasks today, we don’t have google docs tasks today, follow the pdf guide in kstars to chart these heavenly bodies and learn some astronomy instead.”
The problem isn’t “Tech” or “Laptops” or even “Tablets” ; but the addictive nonsense so-called “Tech-companies” spend all their efforts designing instead of trying to solve any actual problems…
You can’t make such a statement about a whole generation without referring to a large cohort study.
Nothing in USA rewards intelligence. Not education system, not employers, not government. Why develop a skill that isn’t in demand? Would you want to develop medieval brickmaking just because some researcher is measuring for it?
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.
As the great Douglas Adams once wrote: “This has generally been considered a bad idea.”
2002 though. I sympathize. The internet was different and more human. He must’ve thought they were giving kids freedom to access NatGeo and Wikipedia.
…We were more optimistic about the internet then.
…But they failed to take into account that they were releasing children into an unregulated world of predatory marketer barons making millions hand-over-fist by hijacking attention.
I feel bad for the girl in the picture. She turns up every time the “technology makes kids dumbfucks” argument surfaces. Feel like ive seen her about 20 times in the last year.
Imagine being the face of that.
I’m guessing from her vacant stare that she probably doesn’t think much of it mate. Jk
You gave a bunch of kids systems they’re completely locked out of modifying and garden walled to shit and then act shocked when they learn nothing from them.
Jesus
That’s not true, they learned something. It just wasn’t beneficial at all.
I don’t know about that, even with their digital lobotomy, gen z votes a lot smarter than older generations.
the older Gen z , the younger ones are pretty lacking, plus thier aspiration is to be influencers, at least some of them.
Stupid kids! Choose a more realistic career, like astronaut.
It sounds like it’s false, but even if it were true, companies like Fortune are working hard to make it true. They want suckers who don’t think, who don’t remember, who can perform high level labor at almost no cost, so the rich can get richer.
yeah I’m skeptical, but at the same time I’m sure the people showing up for job interviews in the past few years are less capable of basic first year college shit than they used to be. Heck, these days if you ask a basic data structures question at an interview they’ll go home and meme about how bullshit it is that they even got asked that because algorithms got nothing to do with real programming
Younger gen z are incredibly dumb this really isn’t anything new or up for debate.
So is most people, myself included. Millennial btw
