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.”
I get what you’re saying, but this isn’t a dig at Gen Z. For as long as we’ve been testing, which is like 50 years I think, the new generation has outperformed the previous one and that’s a good thing.
Having this generation underperform means that we have failed them and we need to figure out exactly how we fucked up. The evidence is really strong that technology in the classroom is a significant contributor.
As a Gen z who managed to not be an idiot I’m unconvinced it’s the technology when even in my elementary school years I was beginning to realize how shit the school system is. Technology probably doesn’t make things better but it was failing me in elementary school when the best of the best was the massive brick of a computer Macs in the computer lab was all we had
I’m not an expert on this, but I have listened to people talk who are and claim that you can pretty clearly link cognitive decline with the introduction of technology effectively everywhere.
I’m sure it’s not as clear as “tech bad” but it does seem like screen time and deferring the manual parts of learning to computers is not great for us.
But I was born in the mid90s. My dad is a tech geek, so we had a personal computer with Windows 95 and I was playing Adiboo on it at 2-3 years old. Also had a Gameboy with Pokemon. Played CS/HL/DOD in the early 2000s. All before we were going to the computer lab at my school.
So I’ve been entrenched in computers and tech my whole life. So I don’t think screen time itself is bad, but we also did not have tech in the classroom (except for the old school throw projectors).
So it probably doesn’t help that the classroom nowadays is all tech while also the kid’s home is all tech. It’s a balancing act.
I get what you’re saying, but this isn’t a dig at Gen Z. For as long as we’ve been testing, which is like 50 years I think, the new generation has outperformed the previous one and that’s a good thing.
Having this generation underperform means that we have failed them and we need to figure out exactly how we fucked up. The evidence is really strong that technology in the classroom is a significant contributor.
in the classroom specifically though? did they control for screen time outside of the classroom in the study?
As a Gen z who managed to not be an idiot I’m unconvinced it’s the technology when even in my elementary school years I was beginning to realize how shit the school system is. Technology probably doesn’t make things better but it was failing me in elementary school when the best of the best was the massive brick of a computer Macs in the computer lab was all we had
I’m not an expert on this, but I have listened to people talk who are and claim that you can pretty clearly link cognitive decline with the introduction of technology effectively everywhere.
I’m sure it’s not as clear as “tech bad” but it does seem like screen time and deferring the manual parts of learning to computers is not great for us.
Personal anecdote here, so grain of salt.
But I was born in the mid90s. My dad is a tech geek, so we had a personal computer with Windows 95 and I was playing Adiboo on it at 2-3 years old. Also had a Gameboy with Pokemon. Played CS/HL/DOD in the early 2000s. All before we were going to the computer lab at my school.
So I’ve been entrenched in computers and tech my whole life. So I don’t think screen time itself is bad, but we also did not have tech in the classroom (except for the old school throw projectors).
So it probably doesn’t help that the classroom nowadays is all tech while also the kid’s home is all tech. It’s a balancing act.
It’s closer to 100 years at this point.