In a captivating episode 0f Wired & Watched 101: EdTech, host Missy Carwowski sits down with Dr. Jared Cooney Horvath, a neuroscientist, former teacher, and leading expert on the science of learning. For two decades, Horvath has studied how humans truly learn—focusing on memory, attention, and brain function—and his findings deliver a sobering message: despite billions spent and endless promises, education technology (laptops, tablets, one-to-one devices, and now AI) is not transforming learning for the better.
In many cases, it is actively harming it. Far from making children smarter, the explosion of screens in classrooms is contributing to the first measured cognitive declines in generations, leaving parents and educators searching for answers.Horvath traces the problem to three fundamental ways technology clashes with how the human brain learns.
First, screens destroy focused attention through constant multitasking—something the brain cannot actually do. Students now spend over 2,500 hours a year switching between tabs, messages, and videos, training them to task-switch rather than concentrate. Second, learning relies heavily on empathy—the biological synchrony that happens when humans interact face-to-face—which machines simply cannot provide. Without that human connection, students lack the motivation to push through difficulty and often quit at the first sign of struggle. Third, “transfer” fails: knowledge learned on screens in an easy, narrow context rarely moves to the varied, complex real world, because computers remove the very effort and contextual cues that make learning stick.
The evidence is stark and growing. Gen Z and Gen Alpha are the first generations to show declines in memory, attention, and general intelligence compared to their parents—the reversal of the Flynn effect that had been climbing for a century. Raw scores on international tests like PISA and the SAT have been dropping 15–30 points per decade, hidden only by constant renorming and grade inflation. Meanwhile, handwriting boosts memory through spatial context and forces deeper processing, while typing often produces shallow, verbatim notes that students barely remember. Even binge-watching studies (which helped shape Netflix’s release strategy) show that spaced practice beats massed screen exposure for both understanding and enjoyment.
Horvath dismantles the common defenses of edtech with clarity. Claims of “potential” admit that promised benefits aren’t happening yet—hardly a reason to double down. Arguments that children must master today’s tools to be “work-ready” ignore the fact that K–12 education has always been about teaching adaptable thinking, not specific software that will soon be obsolete. And the excuse that teachers or students are simply “using it wrong” falls flat: real-world use, not inventors’ intentions, determines a tool’s impact. After sixty years of waiting for the edtech revolution, the data remains underwhelming at best and damaging at worst.
So what should classrooms look like? Horvath envisions a return to pre-2000 norms: computer labs used intentionally for specific lessons, not ubiquitous devices in every hand. Teachers and parents should demand true opt-out policies, forcing schools to maintain analog alternatives. When educators must prepare both digital and paper versions of assignments, most quickly discover that analog methods produce deeper understanding with greater flexibility. Above all, Horvath reminds us that learning has always happened best through human relationships—between teachers and students, students and students—not through screens. As cell-phone bans spread across schools, the next frontier is reclaiming classrooms from compulsory edtech, giving children back the focused, empathetic, effortful environment their brains need to thrive.
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