Opinion: We don’t need no screen education

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Hey, computer, leave them kids alone! We should start singing a new tune. Well, at least an old one with new lyrics. That’s because we’re finally seeing some momentum on getting cellphones out of America’s classrooms. It’s also happening in Europe.

Now is a good time to take it a step further. Let’s get rid of screens.

Businessman and former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg proposed a similar idea in a recent op-ed titled, “Kids are spending too much class time on laptops.”

“Technologists,” as Bloomberg calls them, have pushed screens in front of our children in 90% of American schools. Technologists include think tank researchers, government officials and computer manufacturers — or people, who, I imagine, probably see other humans as walking lines of JavaScript code.

In any case, these techies assumed that devices like desktops, laptops and tablets “would allow for curricula to be tailored around student needs, empowering them to learn at their own pace and raising achievement levels. It hasn’t worked,” Bloomberg writes.

He provides numbers in support, but do you really need them? Suffice it to say that, as Bloomberg adds, “test scores are near historic lows.” America is falling further behind other developed countries in math and reading (blah, blah, blah). Sadly, this shouldn’t be news to anyone anymore.

Like in so many other areas of American life, companies with a financial interest are busily promoting their wares (in this case software and hardware), oblivious to or willfully ignorant of the ill effects on users.

While tech continues to tighten its grip on education, schools have lost sight of the bigger picture. They’ve outsourced to IT companies not only the products and services used in their classrooms, but also the idea of what a “meaningful” education should entail.

Ah — meaningful — such a warm and fuzzy word. What does meaningful mean in this context?

Let’s answer that by way of experiment. The next time you’re intimate with a screen for the next 20 minutes or six hours (depending on your ability to digitally zombify), take note of what you remember. Maybe it’s just me, but I don’t remember much.

After a haze of scrolling, YouTube, headline scanning and a frantic search for any other burst of newness — much of which is algorithmically decided on my behalf — all I’m left with is a big bag of undigested tidbits, as well as something akin to Catholic guilt (let’s call it Analog guilt) for being seduced into a colossal time suck.

But kids in school use computers in a focused way, to zero in on cognitive-building tasks, the technologists would say in perfect Silicon Valley-ese.

Two issues with that.

One, when you watch young people or anyone with their faces pressed into a screen, it appears that they are utterly absorbed or “focused” on what they are doing. And this can genuinely be so. They might even be focusing on one task, amazing as that seems. But what are screens doing more of — helping us focus or fragmenting that focus?

Increasingly, the latter is winning out. That’s because screens excite our urge to “see what else is going on.” They encourage multitasking, which is now baked into our technological cake/world. Screens combined with the internet give you infinite options as well as anxiety about missing out (FOMO). Skeptical? Then count how many windows you have open on your computer, or how many apps are running on your smartphone.

Granted, schools use blocking software to keep students focused — good for them — but our students’ ability to “zero in” has already been gravely damaged because of their screen habits outside of school. They can’t even get through an entire book. And who can blame them? Most of us suffer from this to varying degrees.

In his new book, “The Sirens’ Call,” MSNBC host Chris Hayes describes how the “slot-machine model” has become the dominant one of our age. Powerful IT companies have invested enormous sums of money trying to solve a big human “dilemma”: It’s easy to gain someone’s attention (just pass gas loudly in public), but how do you hold it?

“Slot machines hold our attention by grabbing it for just a little bit while we wait for the spinning to stop, and then repeating that same brief but intense process over and over,” Hayes writes. Paradoxically, the slot machine model keeps us engaged by slicing and dicing our attention spans. It’s at work in video games, social media (the endless feed), and in so many apps and computer programs. It’s almost mandatory that tech companies adopt it if they want to compete in our attention-deficit age.

But here is the second and more important objection to the technologists’ contention that screens should be integral to education (and this reconnects to the meaningful bit above): Screens simply detract from our face-to-face time together on this revolving rock. They fritter away our memories or just prevent us from making memories. And memories are often made doing in-person things with other people.

Bloomberg alludes to this, which is why he should run for president again:

“Some of the most powerful educational interactions occur when a caring, well-trained teacher can look into a student’s eyes and help them see and understand new ideas. Machines often don’t have that power.”

Solutions? Easy. And low cost. Our dear old friends from a bygone era — pure social time with other humans and books — are the answer. Books are self-enclosed worlds better suited to helping us concentrate. We can get lost in them, especially when there isn’t anything flashing, pulsating or beeping in the background.

Yes, what we need is a total detox from screens in schools. Plato’s Academy resurrected. If today’s technology is supposedly so “intuitive,” then let the kids have at it later on, and outside of school. They won’t have a problem figuring it out.

Let’s look at the issue as we would our investments. We really need to diversify our portfolio. In school, students should enjoy pure social time. They should also use books to build mental muscle for sustained focus. This will serve them well for life, but also for the insanely paced tech world to follow.

Our schools should be a refuge from digital life before students become fully engrossed in it.

Terrance J. Mintner is a news editor and writer living in the Midwest. He writes a newsletter on Substack called Feral Brain (feralbrain.substack.com).