Earlier this month, the Canadian province of Alberta announced it would join Quebec, Ontario and British Columbia in restricting cell phone use in classrooms, with Education Minister Demetrios Nikolaides saying “the risks to students' mental health and academic achievement are real and we must take action now to combat these impacts.”
In Los Angeles, the school board approved a cellphone ban, with board chair Jackie Goldberg saying, “This is a serious addiction.”
The evidence has been accumulating for a long time and is becoming overwhelming. There are at least 54,006 studies on “social media addiction” on academia.edu. This is no longer just a matter of the platitudes that we need to study the issue more or that we need to teach responsible internet use.
01:58
School destroys cellphones to warn students, sparks controversy
School destroys cellphones to warn students, sparks controversy
We are addicted to screens, primarily our phones, that are addictive to use, designed to collect data to sell products, and that are harming us mentally, physically and emotionally, with even greater harm being done to children during their developmental years.
Childhood, once spent playing and imagining, now revolves around our phones — a real-life horror story recounted by Haidt in his book, The Anxious Generation — and the billions of dollars being spent on ineffective “ed tech” are draining badly needed education funding and lining the pockets of tech entrepreneurs.
So-called educational technologies have never been convincingly shown to be better than “traditional” teaching methods at improving outcomes. Head-to-head comparisons show that educational technologies are grossly overrated, produce poor outcomes, and even cause harm to users.
But even if tech entrepreneurs could fund just one study that showed good results, can they justify increasing kids' screen time when they already spend most of their day online?
People are surprised when I tell them that, despite there being more than 455,000 educational apps available for download, there is little evidence that educational technology is effective. Dr. Cathy Hirsch-Pasek, a professor at Temple University who recently spoke at the Brookings Institution webinar “Screens and Child Well-Being,” looked at the 120 most popular educational apps and found that only two “appear to have any educational value.”
03:15
Chinese parents question effectiveness of Beijing bill to limit children's mobile phone usage
Chinese parents question effectiveness of Beijing bill to limit children's mobile phone usage
The reason for this unlimited proliferation of educational technology is rooted in belief and money.
My colleagues at Nanzan were surprised that instead of getting a PhD in Philosophy, I had taken courses for an MBA in addition to an MA and TESOL (Teaching English to Non-Native Speakers) certification, but my MBA classes taught me about a widespread and enduring belief that new technology is always useful and good – an enthusiasm for technology.
The UNESCO report, “A Tragedy of Educational Technology?”, introduces a similar rhetoric of “techno-solutionism”: that technology always solves problems, even if it creates them. The report details how the tech-focused response to COVID-19 was based on the critique that education was “dysfunctional” and in need of fixing. Marketing terms such as “digital transformation” have permeated education discussions for years.
The pandemic opened the door. Another marketing term followed: leapfrog. We were about to leapfrog into a brave new world of better learning. Technology was our savior. Lockdown was a disaster for students but a drain on education technology companies.
05:39
COVID-19: A year after classes were suspended, Hong Kong's poorest students are left behind with online learning
COVID-19: A year after classes were suspended, Hong Kong's poorest students are left behind with online learning
Educators are apprehensive about criticizing edtech. Critics are invariably labeled “traditional” and the ultimate insult: “old.” Edtech proponents simply gush about “the future” and the money pouring in. The title of a recent email I received from The Edge, the newsletter of the Chronicle of Higher Education, says it all: “Is Even Unsexy Ed Tech Worth $800 Million?”
The situation in Hong Kong is dire. I recently administered an English reading test to primary school students in Kwai Hing city, and all of the students were at least three years behind and had no reading comprehension skills at all. Many of them could not even begin to solve the problems.
“I hate 'hard.'” One girl told me. I could write volumes about the Hong Kong kids I've met who have been ruined by screens. Parents complain that they can't stop their kids' nonstop mobile phone use. Apparently, parents can't stop their own.
That's why the removal of educational technology and banning mobile phones in schools makes sense. Schools are controlled environments designed for learning, providing opportunities for children to learn not just academic subjects but also collaboration and social skills. And Hong Kong's teachers are by and large dedicated professionals, despite being overworked, underpaid and easily criticized and blamed for everything.
It may not sound appealing, but let's give them the support and resources to mentor them and stop making tech entrepreneurs rich at the expense of our children's lives.
Los Angeles native Robert Badal is an author, teacher, former corporate consultant, and speechwriter for CEOs.
