The book "Digital Delusion" (The Digital Delusion) by Jared Cooney Horvath launched an initiative against screen use in schools, as well as a great debate in the American public.
In December of this year, the previously unknown educational consultant self-published a book and became a leader grassroots movement to limit screen time in schools.
The famous British actor, Hugh Grant promoted the book and wrote a recommendation for the cover.
Between textbooks and technology
The book links the years-long decline in the scores of American children on standardized tests to the increasingly common practice of schools assigning each student a laptop or tablet as a substitute for textbooks.
Horvath refers to scientific research and claims that students learn better on paper and through discussion, and that schools are harming children by exposing them to screens.
Parents hand out copies of his book at school board meetings, and school administrators rely on it as a guide to reducing the use of technology in schools.
After the book was published, Horvath spoke in the United States Senate and state legislatures.
As a growing number of states grapple with limiting screen time in schools, local parent groups are calling for webinars to ask for advice on how to pressure officials to return schools to print textbooks.
"There is no way that my book by itself would have that much impact. That's why I think it was all there already, simmering and waiting for the moment to come to the surface. People were looking for arguments and I think that's where the book jumped in and said - this is what you were looking for," said Horvath, according to NBC.
Photo: FreepikIllustration
Transform and improve learning
A large number of parents and educators in America advocate for the limited use of technology in education, that is, "EdTech" tools, and use the book to win over other community members and school leaders.
EdTech includes the application of technology, software and digital tools for educational purposes. It aims to transform and improve the process of learning, teaching and administration, and make education more accessible, personalized and efficient.
National director of the parent and activist organization "School without screens" (School Beyond Screens) and a mother from San Diego, Jodi Caron told NBC that often when they talk about this topic they feel like they are not expert enough and that is why this book, written by someone with experience in education and neuroscience, gave them much more credibility to talk about what they noticed and experienced as parents.
After reading the book, administrators at a school in North Carolina launched a "tech-free" experiment in which students were not allowed to use laptops two days a week.
In parallel with the movement to de-screen education in the US, AI schools are also opening.
The Guardian brings the story of the "Alpha School" (Alpha school), a private AI school in San Francisco, which claims that their students can learn twice as fast as students in traditional schools.
Classes in classic subjects, such as history and mathematics, take place two hours a day, individually, on screens, using software that adapts to the pace and learning style of the students. The teacher is no longer someone who transmits knowledge, but a trainer on the ground who trains children to use technological innovations.
Educational debate
The book has sparked heated debate, from LinkedIn comments to school board meetings and webinars.
Horvath writes that students who use computers for at least six hours a day achieve 66 points lower results than students who do not use them at all, on the PISA test (Programme for International Student Assessment), a global achievement test, and daily use of computers at school is also associated with lower results in mathematics and natural sciences on standardized assessments from the TIMSS study (Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study). He says that schools would gain more if they invested more in air conditioners than in laptops.
For those who are advocates of technology in schools, the book has become a problem, due to the large number of parents who have read the book and are asking for a change in the way of learning.
Richard Kulata, executive director of a nonprofit that advises schools on the use of technology, told NBC that the book has caused a lot more wasted time discussing the wrong topic by linking declining test scores to educational technology.
"It's a huge conflation of correlation and causation. It's drawing a conclusion that doesn't exist, and the reason this is so dangerous is that when you look at what's actually going on, it's much more likely that there are other things that are causing it. Mental health has a bigger impact," Kulata said. Although, he says that he expected that there would be a kind of "reckoning" about educational technology, after schools spent a lot of money during the Covid-19 pandemic on devices and software that were not sufficiently tested.
Photo: FreepikIllustration
The advantage of reading printed books
In his book, Horvath refers to many arguments from various research centers, whose research shows the advantage of reading printed books and writing by hand compared to working on a screen.
The president of the American Federation of Teachers, the second largest education union in the US, Randi Weingarten, in her speech in which she called for the limitation of technology in schools, marked Horvat as a "leading researcher", writes NBC.
The book has gained great popularity in America, it is quoted at school board meetings, and Horvath himself says that the time in which it came out was perfect because recently groups of parents have begun to organize themselves to put pressure on schools to reduce the time students spend in front of screens.
Fighter against the screen
Horvath received his master's degree from Harvard, where he studied how the brain learns, and his PhD in cognitive neuroscience from the University of Melbourne in Australia. He is the author and editor of books in the field of neuroscience, and has been writing about how the brain works in educational contexts for more than a decade.
"The Digital Delusion" is currently the best-selling book on Amazon in the category educational psychology.
Horvath said he plans to address many of the criticisms in an expanded edition coming out this summer. He acknowledges that some educational technologies, such as tutoring software that adapts to the needs of students, do show a positive impact on learning.
However, for many other education technology products, he says there is not enough research to show improvements compared to traditional methods.
"If I ran the school, I would cancel everything tomorrow. People would ask - what would you do? I would say that we already have all that. It's textbooks, paper and pencil. It's not a matter of inventing something new, but to go back to what works better," said Horvath.
He plans to write at least two more books. One will deal with the question of whether genius can learn, and the other is the "Learning Plan" (The Learning Blueprint) in which he wants to impart everything he has ever learned about learning.
"What drives me every morning is the question: How do human beings learn?" he said.
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