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.
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.
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.
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.