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.
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…
…In the pile with the other disappointments.
tosses it on top of X-men after Fall of X
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 🤔
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.
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.)
Mostly posting this because holy shit what a jump to blame schools distributing laptops being the cause and not psychologically addictive social media algorithms having a total domination of their attention
Definitely nothing to do with the fact that schools giving out laptops disproportionately benefits less wealthier families
Giving kids laptops was a great idea. Letting corporations use those laptops to brainwash our children was probably not.
The issue was not being willing or able to curate their online experiences when given computers.
Nah, it’s a bad idea, especially with internet connection. They are portals of distraction.
My schools just had a computer lab, and we still mostly figured out how to play games or hack the computers.
I remember one time, on very locked down PCs, I figured out how to use DirectX diagnostic tools to start a group chat on the local network. I didn’t even know about that thing, nor was there internet.
I can imagine computers being good only as fully controlled environments with secured connections, no USBs, total control over what software can be opened and used. Anything less is a waste of time.
“These things that I was given access to during my formative years and education? Yea, we absolutely shouldn’t let kids today have any access to them at all… for reasons(?)”
Anything can be a portal to distraction for kids that are bored to tears by an awful teacher, better not let them have colored pencils, they might ‘waste time’ drawing. If they don’t interact with computers at all for their education, they will definitely only think about computers as a box for games and/or youtube, and they will struggle with their use for a long time after. We need an environment to explore the systems and the world around us, where there can be boundaries if we get too far out in left field before we are dropped into the real world with real consequences.
“Educational” software is terrible.
You shut your whore mouth about Oregon Trail
Someone clearly hasn’t played Typing of the Dead.
It educates kids to use MS Office and ChatGPT.
Many got chromebooks and just had google everything.
That is brought up near the end of the article.
While teachers may be intending for these tools to be strictly educational, students often have different ideas. According to a 2014 study, which surveyed and observed 3,000 university students, students engaged in off-task activities on their computers nearly two-thirds of the time.
Horvath blamed this tendency to get off-track as a key contributor to technology hindering learning. When one’s attention is interrupted, it takes time to refocus. Task-switching also is associated with weaker memory formation and greater rates of error. Grappling with a challenging singular subject matter is hard, Horvath said. For the best learning to happen, it’s supposed to be.
“Unfortunately, ease has never been a defining characteristic of learning,” he said. “Learning is effortful, difficult, and oftentimes uncomfortable. But it’s the friction that makes learning deep and transferable into the future.”
Sustained attention to a singular subject is anathema to how technology today has been deployed, argues Jean Twenge, San Diego State University psychology professor studying generational differences and the author of 10 Rules for Raising Kids in a High-Tech World. More time on screens isn’t just ineffective in facilitating learnings; it’s counterproductive.
“Many apps, including social media and gaming apps, are designed to be addictive,” Twenge told Fortune. “Their business model is based on users spending the most time possible on the apps, and checking back as frequently as possible.”
Learning is effortful, difficult, and oftentimes uncomfortable.
It doesn’t have to be. Rote memorization always is for me, but that’s not really learning. And you can focus on just about anything when the alternative is a shitty textbook poorly explaining something that just won’t click with you. Look out the window, doodle, count the ceiling tiles, daydream about not being stuck in school, …
The burden of proof is on you for your claim.
Why does learning not need to be effortful or not difficult or not oftentimes uncomfortable?
Why does learning not need to be effortful or not difficult or not oftentimes uncomfortable?
From the context the combination of these three words sounded to me like they are demanding kids sit still and focus for hours, and that if they fail then that’s a lack of effort, determination or intelligence. You can work through a problem slowly and deliberately because it’s hard to understand, that can feel very rewarding even if it’s hard. But you can also be forced to mentally strain yourself for hours, not because of the subject itself is difficult but because the environment, the provided material, the pressure, … make learning in and of itself take a lot more effort than it needs to.
Yeah, I have literally never gotten better at anything without effort, difficulty, and sometimes being uncomfortable. These things are ingrained to mastering any skill.
I think if it as no difference than lifting weights.
Do hard things till they get easy, then do harder things.
Be careful not to conflate effortful with boring. Learning can be fun but fun doesn’t mean easy or lacking in effort. Fun just makes it easier to remain motivated.
Learning can take effort and be fun, that’s true. Same goes for difficult. But if you put those two in with uncomfortable then I hear that it’s meant to be painful, essentially. Goddamn kids need to sit still and learn, and they can not do anything else for hours, or else!
I also think schools are not evolving to the reality. There’s little incentive to memorize facts in a world where they are so easily acceptable. So we shouldn’t teach the memorization of facts.
We should teach people how to use information, how to criticize it, how to synthesize it, how to apply it. If these pursuits are taken seriously students will retain the information.
This issue is that’s much more difficult to test for than the memorization of facts.
I couldn’t disagree more. We should not be teaching kids to rely their phones. This is literally the same attitude the article talks about.
Rote memorization sucks but it’s 100% a necessary skill if you’re going to learn literally anything. Do you really want an electrician who lives on his phone because he didn’t memorize important aspects of his job? How about a surgeon or a lawyer?
There’s no getting around the fact that you need to memorize things if you’re doing to develop a deep level of skill in any given field. Your phone or laptop is not always going to be there.
I teach immigrants the local language, and students are never grateful to be taught a language. Students are grateful when you teach them how to learn a language.
That might seem like a distinction without a difference, but it’s not. There are thousands of words that people use in common conversation, tens of thousands that you can find in standard newspapers and normal literature, and even more if you want to read academic or specialized literature. When I teach the meaning of one word, that’s giving the students a fish. When I teach them how to break down prefixes or give them advice for increasing their exposure to language input, that’s teaching them how to fish.
The problem is that it only works for students who care. That’s fine by me, because I teach adults and they can decide whether they want to learn or not.
I don’t know how k-12 teachers navigate that, because it’s not exactly the student’s choice- we’ve decided as a society that kids need to learn certain things, whether they want to or not (basically), and that means that schoolteachers need to be able to teach students who don’t care or actively want not to learn (at least about a given subject). Just teaching them to teach themselves doesn’t work there, so you have to teach them some facts, because otherwise they won’t learn any.
It sucks, but I don’t know if it can be fixed. It’s reasonable that students don’t care about every subject, and it’s reasonable that there are things we’ve decided they need to learn, regardless of their interest. Teachers can’t always make a subject interesting to everyone, so sometimes you have to teach the base facts.
My seventh grade English teacher got permission from admin (she told us this) to spend her whole semester with us teaching vocabulary. Word roots, prefixes, suffixes, etc. That was helpful, and interesting, and the first time I enjoyed learning English. I still struggled in English, but I did better after that.
Students are grateful when you teach them how to learn a language.
I relate to this immensely. I’m taking german classes currently and the professor is driving me insane.
She uses an immersion only method where she speaks German at us and we do exercises from a book.
I am slowly getting an understanding of the past imperfect and various grammatical rules but only barely. There has been no real instruction on how these rules work so when I encounter a new verb or noun it’s a total guess everytime.
From my understanding speaking with some Germans, this is the preffered method for teaching English to school children. Which I must admit does seem to work well the English proficiency of the average person is quite high, even amongst those too afraid to speak it their comprehension is high.
The issue is I do not want to be learning German for the next 8 years as a German student would learn English in school. Also my brain is fundamentally different than a child’s. If they were to explain the rules and grammatical concepts it would be much much easier to understand.
A blended approach where the rules for new grammatical concepts are first explained followed with the immersion based exercises we’ve been doing would be ideal.
Yeah, I’m sorry about that. I actually teach German, and especially for students who have a good language sense for English (so if “I singed a song” immediately sticks out to you), tenses are mostly (with some obvious exceptions, like present progressive and preterite/perfect) pretty similar.
She’s probably trying to get your brain to recognize an irregular verb so you don’t have to learn each verb anew, but that’s a problem you’re less likely to have as an English speaker (for example, you’d say “Morgen singe ich, gestern sang ich, heute habe ich noch nicht gesungen,” which is pretty intuitive after English).
Fwiw, you do retain it longer if she sets it up so you can draw your own conclusions, but you also learn more slowly. And if you’re highly motivated, you’ll probably remember it well enough either way.
The whole class speaks English at a B2 level since that’s what is required for International students at the university. I do feel like that could be capitalized on given the similarities.
Honestly I truly feel like I paid someone to read the Kurs DaF A1 book to me. Rarely there are other exercises or explanations.
Comparing other language course I’ve had I liked my high school French teacher’s approach. She primed us with explanations of the new concepts and grammatical rules. Then she followed up with immersion and exercises.
My Spanish courses in college and high school were just memorization based. I technically reached a higher level of course in Spanish, but remember next to nothing. My comprehension of French is much better.
Truthfully I need to dedicate more time to my German, but my other studies being all English take up my time. I’m here for a master’s degree. The language is an additional skill I would like.
And if you care for learner’s perspectives, give quizzes. I don’t know how to explain it, but when we took our first test I felt a lot of concepts click into place because I had to perform if that makes sense. It’s like my brain felt the pressure and acted. It made me wish we had regular quizzes on the content in between tests.
Honestly I truly feel like I paid someone to read the Kurs DaF A1 book to me. Rarely there are other exercises or explanations.
That’s rough. I’m currently teaching at a school where they basically hired me to do that, but they’re not upset that I’m not. The teachers at the school are mainly university students in language related fields, but they mostly don’t have any experience or training in didactics (my autocorrect twigged on that-is it still pedagogy when you’re teaching adults?), so that’s an okay way to get people doing an alright job.
I’m almost done with my masters thesis in German instruction, so I’m not an expert teacher or anything, but I know how to construct an assignment and what didactic principles should guide a lesson plan. And just teaching to the book makes me feel pointless/like I’m cheating.
If you want a pretty good guide to grammar based on comparison with English, then try English Grammar for Students of German
Just relying on classes is slow no matter what method they use. You need to study at home as well and something different from what you learn in class so don’t use the textbook from class. I think the best way to learn a language is to focus on vocabulary first. Like learn the 2000 most frequently used words first through rote memorization. Then grammer comes more naturally since you can get a lot of things from context. Also native speakers don’t know the grammar rules by heart, to them forming a correct sentence just comes naturally. Sure it’s good to know the grammar rules and concepts, but to make it come naturally requires a ton of reading and listening and eventually speaking and writing and that requires a large vocabulary.
The most used method for vocabulary is flash cards. Many people use a program called Anki and a German flash card deck has already been made by the community.
Correct, and an actual study can isolate variables and when you do that, tech is usually a boon. It’s especially easy to do with tech, but long term studies are still difficult because of history effects and imperfect control groups.
I can believe Gen Z is doing worse, but almost every study I’ve been around in education has found Socioeconomic Status to be the strongest factor (by far) and given Gen Z and Alpha are raised by the first generations to have economic decline, it stands to reason that’s probably the main factor here.
School interventions do help to some degree to mitigate SES, it’s just hard when it’s this bad for this long. We’re talking decades of decline.
It would have been a longer and more complex article requiring a lot of research if they tried to go through all the issues that could be contributing. Hell, it’d be a book.
it’s like blaming the obesity epidemic on plates…
when it’s microplastics!
You actually can influence how full a person feels after a set amount of food based on how big or small the plate is on which the food was served.
The addictive qualities of ultra processed foods at the same time as the diminishing nutrition of processed and unprocessed foods alike is obviously so much more of a contributing factor, but isn’t it nuts that plates can also have a measurable effect?
Then it’ll make the wealthy stupider.
I would be willing to bet that is the case, but good luck doing a study to test the hypothesis.
the wealthy know this, they are shielding them from it, placing them in montiserri type schools, aka rich people tutoring, learning grind+ make sure they are in sports, get all extracarricular. with a poorer family its an IPAD/TV/computer doomscrolling , or watching youtube, streamers.
Give the kids a blank laptop that they must erase weekly, and a thumb drive with the basic Gentoo installer.
I know you’re joking, but what would result if this actually happened would be after 1 week 99% of the laptops would never be powered on again and simply be handed back in at the end of the term.
I’d be more worried about the 1% that are still being used. You’ve created a group of kids that know more about the computers than most IT departments.
Those aren’t kids to worry about. Those are kids to put into advanced classes because they’ve got some great understanding of complex topics and problem solving skills.
Well that’ll definitely make them resilient in the face of adversity, at the very least.
THANK YOU. As a teacher, this guy made me rage hard. And even harder when older teachers who already hate technology latched on to it as an excuse. Show me evidence for fucks sake when middle school teachers are ALSO now teaching multiple subject areas, have way less prep time, the school has less money, are also responsible for live online grading and access to assignments.
Also, I love fediverse. Rational mind heaven
Fuck, I know too many stupid adults already…
My partner went back to school. The young person sitting next to him was snapping pictures of slides with her phone during lecture.
That feels like highlighting the entire chapter of assigned reading in pink.
What’s wrong with archiving slides so you can revisit them later?
When I was in college I did similar stuff because I benefited more from actually listening to the lectures instead of trying to keep up with taking notes.
Also, taking pictures is a good hack if you’re nearsighted.
But the worst thing I ever witnessed was a Gen Z girl searching Google for Yahoo, then searching Yahoo for Yahoo mail.
But the worst thing I ever witnessed was a Gen Z girl searching Google for Yahoo, then searching Yahoo for Yahoo mail.
Reminds me of my wife’s cousin who would always search google for facebook then click the facebook.com link. Every time she wanted to go to facebook this is what she did. (This was on a desktop computer in pre-smartphone days.)
Or photocopying pages from a text book to review at home later…
My friend is lecturing second year engineering students and they were all allowed one sheet at A4 paper for a cheat sheet (which they had to submit with their exam). One sheet was full of photos of the whiteboard taken from her phone. Suffice to say, the entire class failed the exam. Not because of the photos but because they didn’t know how to learn.
The average Gen Z are truly going to get smashed when they enter the workforce. The tech industry has stunted their psychological growth by a decade.
I’m seeing an incredible level of anxiety in young workers. Literal head in both hands “I just can’t with…”
I work in a multitasking environment. Everyone present has a constant todo list in constant flux with varying movement of items in that last that move up and down in priority strength.
There are now workers who freak the fuck out when a second task is presented for their list of one. Again, literal head in hands, “I just can’t”.
Someone’s going to die if they don’t start firing these low resilience, incapable fucks. “I just can’t” with their incompetence in organized thinking and emotional regulation.
I see this, “I just can’t deal” a lot in younger generations. I do wonder if they have been conditioned to respond like this due to social media overreaction videos and memes.
Prioritisation is a learned skill. So is communication, that way you can talk to others to determine a task’s priority if you can’t figure it out yourself.
Education systems really need a few classes on stuff like this, not just letting everyone experience the disaster of a “group project” for themselves.
I think it’s literally because they don’t have the mental stamina to deal with it. If they want to know anything, they just look it up and follow the steps. There’s no resilience or practice in retaining lots of information.
For example, I had to memorise a lot of phone numbers and addresses just in case I left my address book at home. I had to remember where things were so I wouldn’t get lost because I didn’t have access to a digital map.
I also went back to university and encountered all of this. I was floored when my classmate went to a YouTube video of someone reading the GitHub manual page rather than reading it themselves.
My friend who works with two Gen Z colleagues are absolutely addicted to their phones and get massive anxiety when talking to someone on the phone (which is a core part of their job). They also get huge anxiety with admitting that they’ve made a mistake.
We’ve failed an entire generation as a society.
Time spent with zero access to “the answer” is key I think.
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.
And who designed the software and tools leading to this?
Google.
Which is run by their parents’ generation
I don’t think framing it generationally is useful. Your average mum and dad have little to nothing to do with it.
It’s run by techbros who live in a different reality then the rest of us.
LOL what on earth if FORTUNE of all places doing publishing an article on this?
Fortune:
Making old people with money feel vindicated, justified in their ageism, and superior…after they sabotaged the next several generations for their own short-term gain.
Up next: “These top megacorps will bring back slave child labor. Could that bump up your portfolio a few points?”
▶️ Fortunate_Son.wav
You get it!
I work with college students and unfortunately regardless of the cause this seems to be true. Capitalism finally got its perfect consumer.
I have been reading the “children are getting dumber” article since grade school.
It is the Shepherd’s Tone of news coverage, right up there with “rising crime rates in urban centers” and “migrant caravans are crossing the border”, that reports the same tired set of manufactured concerns paired with a call to ramp up funding for profitable interventions.
Capitalism finally got its perfect consumer.
The consumer with no disposable income? FFS, these toss off lines don’t even make any fucking sense. You could earn more as a blue-collar day laborer 40 years ago than as an entry-level college grade today.
Why do you think so much of corporate industry has pivoted from retail sales to B2B SaaS as a profit center? Consumerism is dying. Six mega-corps passing each other the same dollar in an investor circle jerk is the future of the economy.
Do you often interact with young people?
For there to be no disposable income these corporations are somehow making money hand over fist at every level of commerce.
As a relatively younger guy (26) I do suspect that a lot of that comes from whales and whatnot IE the richer subsect. At least amongst my friends we have all started to approach old man thinks 20 bucks is a lot of money levels of stingy.
What do you spend your money on? I hear this kind of thing from lots of kids and then discover that they’ve normalized spending on things like door dash and subscription services as being essential.
Do you often interact with young people?
I mean, I have a toddler, just for starters. Also, a bunch of nieces and nephews and friends with kids of various ages. Then I do some of the professional onboarding for interns and college new hires at my company.
So, Idk, for some definition of “young people”, yes.
For there to be no disposable income these corporations are somehow making money hand over fist at every level of commerce.
The big winners of the post-COVID economy have been B2B companies - enterprise level software firms, data center firms, government contractors, and corporate supply chain companies. Your grocery store chains and big box retailers have been comparatively flat. Car companies have underperformed. Even real estate has been anemic, at least by comparison.
To call this a consumer economy, you really have to point to the consumer end of the equation and show some kind of growth. Inflation might be rising, but retail consumption certainly hasn’t.
call this a consumer economy, you really have to point to the consumer end of the equation and show some kind of growth. Inflation might be rising, but retail consumption certainly hasn’t.
Yes it has. Where are you pulling this information from? The only times in the last 30 years where real retail consumption hasn’t raised is after 08 and during COVID.
Yes it has.
Virtually flat for five straight years.
Only because that short of a period does not account for the giant spike we had due to post-pandemic spending. If you took out the period of time during and directly after the pandemic the growth curve would look completely normal.
that short of a period does not account for the giant spike we had
Trying to explain to a corpse that, on average, it’s still got a heartbeat.
I’m unsure of what you’re arguing here. Walmart continues to grow, Doordash has healthy growth, McDonald’s is still growing despite price increases, subscriptions are growing, micro transactions, cbd companies… I can literally keep going. The need to scroll and consume has hit gen Z hard and despite no “disposable income” they’re somehow pushing profits up along with any other struggling person. These minor comforts are big business.
Retail consumption isn’t growing? Buddy…
They like to confidently make a lot of bold claims that are very easy to refute by looking at a simple chart.
These are a handful of exceptions to a sweeping 15 year trend.
The following retailers in the United States and Canada have all either closed or announced plans to close large numbers of retail locations, since 2010, deemed a “retail apocalypse” by media, accelerated by both the increase in online shopping and by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Online shopping is retail but semantics… I guess the businesses that aren’t on your list are showing profits made by ghosts then.
Amazon’s data center revenue — primarily from its Amazon Web Services (AWS) business — has grown faster than its retail sales in recent years, reflecting a strategic shift toward high-margin cloud infrastructure.
Some of this is governmental. But a big chunk is functionally a circular network of business spending. Microsoft pays Amazon a dollar. Amazon pays NVIDIA a dollar. NVIDIA pays Microsoft a dollar. Ad Infinium.
deemed a “retail apocalypse” by media, accelerated by both the increase in online shopping and by the COVID-19 pandemic.
So brick and mortar consumer retail is being killed off by online consumer retail…and you are interpreting this as all consumer retail is failing? Are you just not arguing in good faith, or are you that donkey brained?
I have been reading the “children are getting dumber” article since grade school.
This generation of children are also dealing with some unprecedented events that we know are pretty bad for cognitive development. Both the advent of Covid and the regular use of certain technology in children are relatively new, and we have plenty of studies telling us they are actually delaying cognitive development.
The consumer with no disposable income? FFS, these toss off lines don’t even make any fucking sense.
Consumer spending has increased year over year since the 70s, just since 2020 it’s increased by over 30%.
Consumer spending isn’t just the stuff you want, it’s also the stuff you need. Disposable income is the surplus after your mandatory deductions, like state and federal taxes. So things like groceries, rent, utilities, and your phones are all spent with “disposable income”.
Secondly, more people have more access to acquire debt than ever before. The total household debt in the US is now 18.2 trillion dollars. Consumerism is not dying, it’s just being funded by debt, which in late stage capitalism is the perfect consumer.
This generation of children are also dealing with some unprecedented events that we know are pretty bad for cognitive development.
I don’t want to play the “who had it harder?” game, because that’s always just a war of the sob stories. But COVID is competing with Vietnam enlistment and lead/asbestos poisoning, when it comes to generational intellectual speedbumps. Nevermind the sheer dearth of educational establishments prior to the Boomer-Era buildout of high school and college campuses. I lived through the era when everyone and their kid brother was being diagnosed with a learning disability. And when weed was supposed to obliterated cognition in young people. And when video games were rotting brains. And when Cliff’s Notes was destroying academia. There’s always something.
I see so many “My 16-year-old is a drooling idiot” hysterical denouncements of modern education. And it’s all couched in this insufferable nostolgia for a past that never existed. Long-form Op-Ed articles about how not wearing a bike helmet built character or why Montessori School turned our kids queer. Screaming tirades about the poor quality of STEM and the insidious nature of liberal arts education, combined with jerk-off sessions over Classical Education and the endless need for Teaching The Controversy and in-class debates.
Fucking awful people pushing bullshit lines that get gobbled up by whatever audience is being told “You’re the smart ones, every other generation else is worthless trash”.
more people have more access to acquire debt than ever before
That’s. Not. Actually. True.
Fewer people have access to consumer credit today. A select subset have access to higher debt limits in an inflationary economy. And most of that debt is housing debt, not retail consumer debt, anyway.
The $18.2 trillion isn’t distributed equitably. It’s also overstated, given that a bunch of it is bad medical and housing debt that debt-holders refuse to write down.
COVID is competing with Vietnam enlistment and lead/asbestos poisoning, when it comes to generational intellectual speedbumps. Nevermind the sheer dearth of educational establishments prior to the Boomer-Era buildout of high school and college campuses.
I mean, Vietnam didn’t happen to children… But I get that’s not your point. However, just because this generation is seeing cognitive development hurdles, does not mean others didn’t face their version as well. The largest difference is things like lead have been around for hundreds if not thousands of years. Their reduction marks an improvement to a situation that had been endemic for generations.
Something like COVID or the introduction of screens marks a new impediment that is being laid on top of residual ones that people in the past also dealt with.
I lived through the era when everyone and their kid brother was being diagnosed with a learning disability.
Yes, but children had always had those impairment, diagnosis have just been better at catching disabilities.
And when weed was supposed to obliterated cognition in young people. And when video games were rotting brains. And when Cliff’s Notes was destroying academia. There’s always something.
Yes, based on the hysterics of the news, not scientific consensus.
so many “My 16-year-old is a drooling idiot” hysterical denouncements of modern education. And it’s all couched in this insufferable nostolgia for a past that never existed. Long-form Op-Ed articles about how not wearing a bike helmet built character or why Montessori School turned our kids queer. Screaming tirades about the poor quality of STEM and the insidious nature of liberal arts education, combined with jerk-off sessions over Classical Education and the endless need for Teaching The Controversy and in-class debates.
Again, you are arguing against a straw man of your own making. My examples were based on scientific studies, not news reports.
Fewer people* have access to consumer credit today.
That’s not true according to the latest SCE CREDIT ACCESS SURVEY
Reported application rates for any kind of credit over the past twelve months increased in February to the highest level since October 2022, driven by an increase in credit card applications. The overall rejection rate for any kind of credit over the past twelve months decreased to 15.9 percent, the lowest level since June 2021. Rejection rates fell across all credit types.
most of that debt is housing debt, not retail consumer debt, anyway
That’s always been true? Consumer credit card debt is also near an all time high, especially with how popular buyitnow pay later plans have gotten.
The $18.2 trillion isn’t distributed equitably.
Never said it wasn’t?
It’s also overstated, given that a bunch of it is bad medical and housing debt that debt-holders refuse to write down.
Which still counts as disposable income spending.
I mean, Vietnam didn’t happen to children…
US soldiers killed in Vietnam were as young as 16. The average age was 23, so assume roughly half under that. The human brain isn’t fully developed until 25. FFS, we didn’t let people vote until 21 when the war started. And we only passed the 26th amendment in '71, directly in response to the contradiction between enlistment and elections.
Something like COVID or the introduction of screens marks a new impediment that is being laid on top of residual ones
I’ll spot you COVID, at least for the specific cohort that hit their prime learning years during the shutdown.
But the introduction of screens? We’ve had screens since the 1950s. And, I gotta throw back to XKCD on this one…
The introduction of keyboards has been an enormous boon for education.
Yes, but children had always had those impairment
And in a largely agricultural or early industrial economy, it hasn’t been a serious issue. These only truly become classified as “impairments” when they interfere with a very specific kind of intellectual labor.
Reported application rates for any kind of credit over the past twelve months increased in February to the highest level since October 2022
So we had a four year long dip and we’re finally caught back up?
Which still counts as disposable income spending.
There is no elasticity in these budget items.
US soldiers killed in Vietnam were as young as 16. The average age was 23, so assume roughly half under that. The human brain isn’t fully developed until 25.
Yes, but you aren’t interfering with a child’s ability to learn which is what we were discussing. At that age cognitive function that is typically affected by PTSD and high levels of stress is impulse control and rational control over your emotions.
the introduction of screens? We’ve had screens since the 1950s. And, I gotta throw back to XKCD on this one…
If you cared to read the study you would have learned that they are specifying passive activities. Playing games that actively have the user engage with thought is fine, what is harmful and is a growing problem is passive participation. Where the only thing you do is just swipe to the next piece of entertainment .
If you would have bothered to read the source you would have known that this comic doesn’t have anything to do what we were talking about.
And in a largely agricultural or early industrial economy, it hasn’t been a serious issue. These only truly become classified as “impairments” when they interfere with a very specific kind of intellectual labor.
Again, what does this have to do with your argument… We do not live in an agrarian society.
So we had a four year long dip and we’re finally caught back up?
No, we’ve been growing in debt and access to debt since the crash in 08, in 20-21 we saw a two year lull due to the pandemic. Since the end of the pandemic we have seen the most aggressive rebound in history, largely spurred by inflation and post pandemic spending.
There is no elasticity in these budget items.
That is not relevant to the current argument.
you aren’t interfering with a child’s ability to learn which is what we were discussing
Drafting a kid out of high school and putting them on a 12-month tour of duty absolutely interfered with their education. Even if they never see a day of combat, they’re still doing some menial work that allows their accrued educational experience to atrophy. Same as what happened during COVID.
they are specifying passive activities
They are specifying interpersonal communications through text.
In this study children 10-12 were asked to compose text messages. The number of textisms was recorded, and a positive correlation was found between use of SMS abbreviations and success at literacy tests. This is then related to David Crystal’s concept of “ludic” language: the playful use of language as a contribution to language development. That notion is developed here: By playing with textual language, one develops writing skills
How is this “passive”? None of it involves “swiping”.
Again, what does this have to do with your argument…
That public reporting on learning difficulties only became interesting when students were educated to the level at which the difficulty was relevant? It goes directly against the notion that the current generation is in a unique situation.
That is not relevant to the current argument.
It is extremely relevant.
They say things like this about every generation. Boomer kids had their brains rotted by TV and rock’n’roll. GenX couldn’t do long division because of calculators. Millennials lost the ability to communicate in complete sentences because of mobile phone texting. In the bronze age, writing totally destroyed the youth’s ability to memorise epic poetry. And so on.
What are we testing them on? Some “basic skills” become irrelevant over time and the testing should reflect that.
We dont test kids on how to use a slide rule any more.
The advent of the calculator has likely made us all dumber at mental math, but that doesnt mean we havent gained skills elsewhere.
Standardised testing results plummeting for the first time ever is quite a bit different to the anecdotal generational gripes you’re describing.
Really highlights the problems with standardised testing.
Standardised testing results plummeting for the first time ever
The Pineapple And The Hare: Can You Answer Two Bizarre State Exam Questions?
Consider what would happen if every single student in the testing pool gained superintelligence overnight and they all aced the tests uniformly. What would testing companies do next? They can’t just hand out perfect scores to everyone all the time. There’s no value in that as a metric.
In the same vein, imagine if everyone was hit in the head with a hammer before test day and they all failed. Testing companies would be lambasted for flunking an entire graduating class, as the default assumption would be that the tests were the problem, not the students.
Standardized testing must be a rigged game which seeks to produce a particular set of outcomes to satisfy the state education boards, not to accurately measure the cognitive capacity of test-takers. Exam difficulty can change radically year to year simply because students are doing too well (or too poorly) for the purposes of sorting the “smart” students from the “dumb” ones.
That’s before you get into the economic incentives of privatized exam-prep courses and supplemental material sales. Or the incentives offered by schools looking to goose scores by a certain degree per year in exchange for some kind of bonus.
The result is the first generation less cognitively capable than their parents.
Scientists: This is the first time this has actually happened based on measurable data.
You: Old people have been saying the same thing forever.
Scientists: This is the first time this has actually happened based on measurable data.
lmao that’s simply not true. If you know anything about academia you’d know that you can find measuring for anything if you want to. In fact 100$ say that this is not the first time even with existing material.
While you are right about academia, if you are going to say “that’s simply not true” then you need to simply have the information to prove it. If you don’t easily find the information, then it is not simply not true. You are so confident in this that you are willing to bet real money. So go find that information.
Millennials lost the ability to communicate in complete sentences because of mobile phone texting.
You sent me down a super fun shorthand rabbit hole. Thanks!
Yeah… But there’s actually quite a bit of research to back it in this case. Standardized testing and literacy rates have been falling sharply since 2017, but accelerated even faster after COVID.
I don’t think laptops in schools really have anything to do with it, it’s likely a reflection of systemic failures in education and the economy. However, we do know that too much screen time for children is harmful for their cognitive development, and there are more and more kids being raised by tablets every day.
I work in healthcare in a pediatric hospital, in the last couple years we’ve had to put in strict rules for our clinic about the use of phones and tablets during the appointments. We often have to tell both the patient and their parents to put their phones away, just so they will somewhat pay attention during the appointment. Often both the parents and their children will throw tantrums when we do this.
Technology isn’t inherently dangerous, but the social media we collectively engage with is designed to keep people engaged with it. It’s almost like we all have little casino slots machines in our pockets, and there’s plenty of research about the harm it’s doing.
Standardized testing and literacy rates have been falling sharply since 2017, but accelerated even faster after COVID.
Are you saying that letting an anti public education grifter take over the Dept of Education was a mistake?!?
I mean that definitely doesn’t help, but COVID in general was just a large disruption for most family’s routines and children thrive with stability in their lives.
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.
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.
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.
I don’t need a neuroscientist to tell me Gen Z are a bunch of dumbasses.
You can either look at instagram and tictok or look at who votes for the DSA.
Lol “who votes for the DSA”
Your Democratic party just blocked a move to stop giving more money to Israel. Had years after first trump presidency to release Epstein files. Didn’t.
It is the controlled opposition party. It answers to suits just like republicans do. They just dangle the carrot a little closer.
Its either, Democratic party, Republican party, or DSA which is the ONLY other party that has a shot right now and its only if it gets enough momentum.
I already know what Republicans and Democrats are about from years of seeing them get things to where they are right now
I am nowhere close to Gen Z by the way.
Your sentence structure doesn’t really give you much room to talk there, bud.
So, any comments on the followers of morons like Fuentes and Tate who are in their teens and 20s? Oh, guess they’re totally not a bunch of dumbasses. Super smart rational people just doing some looksmaxxing.
you might need a neuroscientist for something else, though.
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
Nice one, Millennials.
Aren’t gen-z the kids of gen-x? I’m a millennial and my parents are boomers, 2 gens before
I mean children are ideally raised by their grandparents but no, generations are successive, they don’t “skip a generation”. Greatest generation fought WW2, came home, and caused the Baby Boom. They raised Boomers who raised GenX who raised Millenials who raised GenZ who are presently raising Alpha. Of course there are millenials who raise millenials and genx who raised genz but that’s not the usual case.
So you literally show where it skipped a generation, because you completely left out the Silent Generation between the Greatest Generation and the Boomers.
Greatest Gen are generally the parents of Boomers. Silent Generation are the parents of GenX. Boomers are the parents of Millennials. Gen X are the parents of Gen Z. Millennials are the parents of Gen Alpha.
