A neuroscientist’s Senate testimony has been viewed over two million times. Parents are showing up to school board meetings with copies of his book. Sixteen states have introduced legislation to restrict devices in schools.
The four pillars are useful. But "purpose before platform" is asking a question the procurement process already answered. Districts don't sign contracts after teachers decide why the tool serves the learning. They sign contracts, then ask teachers to find a use. The structural failure is that the decision architecture doesn't require an educational rationale before it requires a signature.
The most important data point in this whole piece is near the end: disadvantaged students got the highest doses of edtech and the weakest outcomes. That's the system doing what it was designed to do: moving product through the schools with the least resistance. No four-pillar framework fixes that upstream.
Completely agree, Christopher. The decision architecture is backwards and one of the primary reasons so many schools are left with digital things and not purpose driven technology.
The same goes with adults, which is why I published [_Cognitive Productivity: Using Knowledge to Become Profoundly Effective_](https://leanpub.com/cognitiveproductivity/) and [_Cognitive Productivity with macOS: 7 Principles for Getting Smarter with Knowledge_](https://leanpub.com/cognitive-productivity-macos), to provide knowledge workers with the cognitive science and the skills they need to become more cognitively productive with IT.
I really appreciate this perspective. Our group just took a petition to our school board in Seattle asking for more transparency and intention behind EdTech decisions.
I did just hear a podcast interview with Horvath where he says he’s not anti edtech but wants to see data supporting its effectiveness above analog methods to justify its adoption. I think he actually poses questions very similar to yours though maybe a little more stringent. And I shared your post with a friend and said it would be super informative to see a collegial dialogue between the two of you about this where you differ though I think you’re saying very similar things.
And as a parent of kids who will be in school for the next fourteen years, I would prefer things be yanked back and readded thoughtfully with well supported teachers than continuing with minuscule tweaks while kids spend unknown amounts of time with gamified apps and YouTube videos. It feels so insidious and the arguments like “kids need to know how to use tech in this world” are woefully empty of real critical thinking and designed to shut down conversation as opposed to considering ideas like your pillars or Horvath’s questions.
Erica, thank you — and seriously, kudos for taking that petition to the board. That kind of parent-led pressure is exactly what shifts how districts make these decisions.
You're right that Horvath and I are circling the same questions. I'd genuinely welcome that dialogue. His instinct to demand evidence before adoption is the right one; I tend to land on "intentional integration with well-supported teachers" as the path forward, but the diagnosis is the same — too much tech has been rolled out on vibes rather than evidence.
And your last point lands hard. "Kids need to know how to use tech in this world" has become the conversation-ender, and it's intellectually lazy. Knowing how to use tech well is precisely what we're not teaching when we hand kids gamified apps and call it learning.
Nice essay. You write: “Intelligent tutoring systems — where technology adapts to what a student knows and doesn’t know — show strong positive effects (+0.52). Interventions designed for students with learning differences show even stronger ones (+0.61).”
I think there's something just "off the screen" not addressed here: the fact that in most cases, kids can be using a great learning product, but are a single clip or swipe away from something that's very off-task (at best) and harmful (at worst). That's another part of the device issue that is FAR too often unaddressed (and understandably so, because it's a wicked problem)
Thank you for this. I brought the statistical incoherence of the argument directly to Horvath, only for him to call me juvenile and tell me I act like a PhD student lol. It’s appalling that someone that’s irresponsibly crafted an argument that spans a whole book is moving the needle so much and fomenting moral panic. Any argument that swings the pendulum too far in one direction is most probably a straw man!
👏👏👏 No notes. As a complete tech geek English teacher, I actually don’t deploy the 1:1 chromebooks we have that much. Thinking before typing. Also the exams are still handwritten so there’s that…
I ALSO have made Gems, regularly set assignments in google classroom, bounce around collab docs, share NotebookLMs, use JSTOR AI, MassoLit AI, Brisk…
This is a generational gap. Gen X and elder millennials have a kind of wistful, somewhat touching techno-optimism. I often see older parents happy to give their kids laptops because they think, basically, they're going to teach themselves how to code using an LLM or something, God only knows. Vibecoding! Isn't generative AI cool! Our students are going to be so smart! It's here to stay, baby, so why stick your head in the sand! Computer is so cool.
Ask any recent college graduate what kids are actually doing on school-issued devices. Then ask them what they think of iPad babies. The purpose of the system is what it does.
Very thought-provoking. One thing that often gets left out of the conversation is some children with special needs for whom technology has absolutely opened doors to communicating and learning that were never there before. But, what is life-changing for one student could be counterproductive to another. We need an educational system that is not one size fits all.
Andrew, this piece gave me the most important context I've seen in this entire conversation around Horvath's testimony. The distinction you drew between the OECD data measuring leisure screen time versus purposeful, teacher-guided learning is a vital detail that keeps getting stripped out in every viral clip and school board panic and it completely changes the false conclusion people are drawing.
I just dropped a LinkedIn post today pushing back on Sweden's decision to retreat to paper, and your work was central to making the argument accurately. I quoted you directly and made sure Horvath's actual position wasn't misrepresented because the gap between what he said and what people think he said is doing real damage to this conversation.
If you get a chance to read it I'd genuinely value your thoughts especially on whether the AI-in-classrooms warning at the end resonates with what you're seeing in schools right now.
The four pillars are useful. But "purpose before platform" is asking a question the procurement process already answered. Districts don't sign contracts after teachers decide why the tool serves the learning. They sign contracts, then ask teachers to find a use. The structural failure is that the decision architecture doesn't require an educational rationale before it requires a signature.
The most important data point in this whole piece is near the end: disadvantaged students got the highest doses of edtech and the weakest outcomes. That's the system doing what it was designed to do: moving product through the schools with the least resistance. No four-pillar framework fixes that upstream.
Completely agree, Christopher. The decision architecture is backwards and one of the primary reasons so many schools are left with digital things and not purpose driven technology.
Just a minor correction - you say "A 2024 study published in ScienceDirect..."
ScienceDirect is a platform for accessing journals, not a journal. The study was published in Complementary Therapies in Medicine.
Very thoughtful article!
Well, you’re still smart. Good article.
The same goes with adults, which is why I published [_Cognitive Productivity: Using Knowledge to Become Profoundly Effective_](https://leanpub.com/cognitiveproductivity/) and [_Cognitive Productivity with macOS: 7 Principles for Getting Smarter with Knowledge_](https://leanpub.com/cognitive-productivity-macos), to provide knowledge workers with the cognitive science and the skills they need to become more cognitively productive with IT.
I really appreciate this perspective. Our group just took a petition to our school board in Seattle asking for more transparency and intention behind EdTech decisions.
I did just hear a podcast interview with Horvath where he says he’s not anti edtech but wants to see data supporting its effectiveness above analog methods to justify its adoption. I think he actually poses questions very similar to yours though maybe a little more stringent. And I shared your post with a friend and said it would be super informative to see a collegial dialogue between the two of you about this where you differ though I think you’re saying very similar things.
And as a parent of kids who will be in school for the next fourteen years, I would prefer things be yanked back and readded thoughtfully with well supported teachers than continuing with minuscule tweaks while kids spend unknown amounts of time with gamified apps and YouTube videos. It feels so insidious and the arguments like “kids need to know how to use tech in this world” are woefully empty of real critical thinking and designed to shut down conversation as opposed to considering ideas like your pillars or Horvath’s questions.
Erica, thank you — and seriously, kudos for taking that petition to the board. That kind of parent-led pressure is exactly what shifts how districts make these decisions.
You're right that Horvath and I are circling the same questions. I'd genuinely welcome that dialogue. His instinct to demand evidence before adoption is the right one; I tend to land on "intentional integration with well-supported teachers" as the path forward, but the diagnosis is the same — too much tech has been rolled out on vibes rather than evidence.
And your last point lands hard. "Kids need to know how to use tech in this world" has become the conversation-ender, and it's intellectually lazy. Knowing how to use tech well is precisely what we're not teaching when we hand kids gamified apps and call it learning.
Nice essay. You write: “Intelligent tutoring systems — where technology adapts to what a student knows and doesn’t know — show strong positive effects (+0.52). Interventions designed for students with learning differences show even stronger ones (+0.61).”
Might I trouble you for your sources on this?
Well said--thanks for writing this up.
I think there's something just "off the screen" not addressed here: the fact that in most cases, kids can be using a great learning product, but are a single clip or swipe away from something that's very off-task (at best) and harmful (at worst). That's another part of the device issue that is FAR too often unaddressed (and understandably so, because it's a wicked problem)
Thank you for this. I brought the statistical incoherence of the argument directly to Horvath, only for him to call me juvenile and tell me I act like a PhD student lol. It’s appalling that someone that’s irresponsibly crafted an argument that spans a whole book is moving the needle so much and fomenting moral panic. Any argument that swings the pendulum too far in one direction is most probably a straw man!
👏👏👏 No notes. As a complete tech geek English teacher, I actually don’t deploy the 1:1 chromebooks we have that much. Thinking before typing. Also the exams are still handwritten so there’s that…
I ALSO have made Gems, regularly set assignments in google classroom, bounce around collab docs, share NotebookLMs, use JSTOR AI, MassoLit AI, Brisk…
It. Does. Not. Have. To. Be. A. Binary.
This is a generational gap. Gen X and elder millennials have a kind of wistful, somewhat touching techno-optimism. I often see older parents happy to give their kids laptops because they think, basically, they're going to teach themselves how to code using an LLM or something, God only knows. Vibecoding! Isn't generative AI cool! Our students are going to be so smart! It's here to stay, baby, so why stick your head in the sand! Computer is so cool.
Ask any recent college graduate what kids are actually doing on school-issued devices. Then ask them what they think of iPad babies. The purpose of the system is what it does.
Thanks for making these important pts!
Thanks, Michael!
Very thought-provoking. One thing that often gets left out of the conversation is some children with special needs for whom technology has absolutely opened doors to communicating and learning that were never there before. But, what is life-changing for one student could be counterproductive to another. We need an educational system that is not one size fits all.
Andrew, this piece gave me the most important context I've seen in this entire conversation around Horvath's testimony. The distinction you drew between the OECD data measuring leisure screen time versus purposeful, teacher-guided learning is a vital detail that keeps getting stripped out in every viral clip and school board panic and it completely changes the false conclusion people are drawing.
I just dropped a LinkedIn post today pushing back on Sweden's decision to retreat to paper, and your work was central to making the argument accurately. I quoted you directly and made sure Horvath's actual position wasn't misrepresented because the gap between what he said and what people think he said is doing real damage to this conversation.
If you get a chance to read it I'd genuinely value your thoughts especially on whether the AI-in-classrooms warning at the end resonates with what you're seeing in schools right now.
https://www.linkedin.com/posts/giwahenry_a-neuroscientist-stood-in-front-of-the-us-share-7451917581763944448-lg2P?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop&rcm=ACoAAD2adoYBNaRrN3AwO0NwAzgGP9Ppv_0zAvs