Now THAT's a headline.
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Now THAT's a headline.
"The U.S. spent $30 billion to ditch textbooks for laptops and tablets: The result is the first generation less cognitively capable than their parents"
Alarming given that, as Horvath put it:
“We’re facing challenges more complex and far-reaching than any in human history—from overpopulation to evolving diseases to moral drift. Now, more than ever, we need a generation able to grapple with nuance, hold multiple truths in tension, and creatively tackle problems that are stumping the greatest adult minds of today.”
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https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2025/10/education-decline-low-expectations/684526/
https://plus.flux.community/p/the-science-behind-why-donald-trump
Koch Network and its tech allies have worked very hard at dropping the average literacy of the American electorate.
https://www.ft.com/content/fc508005-aefc-43a4-a40e-d5317f9c3c13
https://archive.ph/tdt8vIt has paid off handsomely. For the 1%
https://www.politico.com/video/2016/02/donald-trump-i-love-the-poorly-educated-044575
https://www.vox.com/2016/2/24/11107788/donald-trump-poorly-educated
https://jacobin.com/2021/04/take-me-to-your-leader-the-rot-of-the-american-ruling-class
https://www.politico.com/story/2017/10/30/kochs-public-schools-shakeup-244259
https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2025/09/whats-driving-decline-in-u-s-literacy-rates/
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Now THAT's a headline.
"The U.S. spent $30 billion to ditch textbooks for laptops and tablets: The result is the first generation less cognitively capable than their parents"
Writing by hand is critically important to cognitive development. Probably eating ants out of small holes with a honey covered stick serves the same purpose, but we don't do that anymore. We are tool users. Our brains are wired for it.
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Now THAT's a headline.
"The U.S. spent $30 billion to ditch textbooks for laptops and tablets: The result is the first generation less cognitively capable than their parents"
@markhurst Technosolutionism is a very bad habit.
Bill Gates has also implemented Ill conceived education schemes with bad outcomes for students https://apnews.com/article/bill-gates-670d3c2eb90c4a6db6cdb92ada3daa3b -
Now THAT's a headline.
"The U.S. spent $30 billion to ditch textbooks for laptops and tablets: The result is the first generation less cognitively capable than their parents"
@markhurst Sure - It's the screens. Not at all anything to do with spending the last six years conducting the *stupidest experiment ever* of measuring the effects of repeatedly infecting children with a neuro-invasive virus noted for causing symptoms often described as brain fog.
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Now THAT's a headline.
"The U.S. spent $30 billion to ditch textbooks for laptops and tablets: The result is the first generation less cognitively capable than their parents"
Illustrates the utter stupidity of the Trump administration, pure evil…
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@markhurst Sure - It's the screens. Not at all anything to do with spending the last six years conducting the *stupidest experiment ever* of measuring the effects of repeatedly infecting children with a neuro-invasive virus noted for causing symptoms often described as brain fog.
@Infoseepage @markhurst
"Fortune reported in 2017 that Maine’s public school test scores had not improved in the 15 years the state had implemented its technology initiative."Test scores not improving in Maine for 15 years prior to 2017 is hard to attribute to the neuro-disruptive effects of COVID-19.
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Now THAT's a headline.
"The U.S. spent $30 billion to ditch textbooks for laptops and tablets: The result is the first generation less cognitively capable than their parents"
@markhurst Brainrot is real.
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@Infoseepage @markhurst
"Fortune reported in 2017 that Maine’s public school test scores had not improved in the 15 years the state had implemented its technology initiative."Test scores not improving in Maine for 15 years prior to 2017 is hard to attribute to the neuro-disruptive effects of COVID-19.
@skua @markhurst Show me graphs of Maine's classroom teacher to student ratios for the last fifteen years. Show me teacher pay and average educational achievement. Show me child poverty rates. Show me data on kids needing food assistance and whether they are getting it. Show me vaccination rates.
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Now THAT's a headline.
"The U.S. spent $30 billion to ditch textbooks for laptops and tablets: The result is the first generation less cognitively capable than their parents"
@markhurst Tablets were supposed to complement textbooks, not replace them entirely! -
@skua @markhurst Show me graphs of Maine's classroom teacher to student ratios for the last fifteen years. Show me teacher pay and average educational achievement. Show me child poverty rates. Show me data on kids needing food assistance and whether they are getting it. Show me vaccination rates.
@skua @markhurst There are lots of confounding variables other than laptops and tablets, yet we always see articles like this and almost never on the other factors. Yeah, a lot of this predates Covid, but there is a general lack of willingness to even consider or acknowledge the effects of this disease on children and the culpability that schools, school boards and society at large have in not making every effort to reduce exposure in an environment they are forced into.
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Now THAT's a headline.
"The U.S. spent $30 billion to ditch textbooks for laptops and tablets: The result is the first generation less cognitively capable than their parents"
@markhurst imagine being the kid picked for this picture
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Now THAT's a headline.
"The U.S. spent $30 billion to ditch textbooks for laptops and tablets: The result is the first generation less cognitively capable than their parents"
@markhurst My totally unfounded opinion is that any tentative to enrich didactics with totally new "special effects", "added interaction", etc., has had the finally effect of disrupting *attention*.
They've lost the basic attention that's needed to follow a (boring) old book, because they've found the /entertaining/ part of the process more interesting.
Who writes educational texts should follow a good course on psychology of communication. -
@jonathankoren We used to give farmers more latitude back then, the farmer and the Dell notwithstanding.
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Now THAT's a headline.
"The U.S. spent $30 billion to ditch textbooks for laptops and tablets: The result is the first generation less cognitively capable than their parents"
Wow... So it wasn't AI afterall
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Now THAT's a headline.
"The U.S. spent $30 billion to ditch textbooks for laptops and tablets: The result is the first generation less cognitively capable than their parents"
I can't be the only one unsurprised that billions into corporate profits produced far worse results than those same billions funneled directly into local school districts?
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Now THAT's a headline.
"The U.S. spent $30 billion to ditch textbooks for laptops and tablets: The result is the first generation less cognitively capable than their parents"
@markhurst why does that matter when Dell and Apple's quarterly earnings looked so good? /s
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Now THAT's a headline.
"The U.S. spent $30 billion to ditch textbooks for laptops and tablets: The result is the first generation less cognitively capable than their parents"
@markhurst I remember complaining about this as a parent and getting nothing but shit
ah well
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Now THAT's a headline.
"The U.S. spent $30 billion to ditch textbooks for laptops and tablets: The result is the first generation less cognitively capable than their parents"
AI will only make it worse.
I joked that we have seen peak human intelligence but now I am convinced it is true.
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Writing by hand is critically important to cognitive development. Probably eating ants out of small holes with a honey covered stick serves the same purpose, but we don't do that anymore. We are tool users. Our brains are wired for it.
@oldoldcojote @markhurst My step granddaughter attends a Montessori school where they teach kids to write in cursive at an early age. I think it is brilliant!
