Jared Cooney Horvath is on a mission. In the wake of global campaigns for smartphone bans in schools and social media restrictions for under-16s, the neuroscientist wants to raise the alarm about educational technology in classrooms.

    A former teacher, Horvath believes the use of screens and digital tools in schools is undermining how children learn and develop. “This might be one of the hardest truths our generation has to face,” he writes in his book, The Digital Delusion.

    

    “Our children are less cognitively capable than we were at their age,” he says. “For nearly two centuries, the west experienced steady generational progress. Each new cohort of children grew up, on average, healthier, happier, and better educated than the last. Until now.”

    Starting around the year 2000, something changed. “Across the west, IQ scores began to fall – even as time spent in school kept rising,” writes Horvath. Scores in international tests started to drop. Why? “The answer lies in the meteoric rise of educational technology.”

    According to a recent Department for Education report, the UK educational technology – or edtech – market generated an annual turnover of about £6.5bn. In the US, Horvath says it is a $400bn (£295bn) mega-industry, woven into every aspect of schooling.

    “We’ve been making some incredible strides on the screenbased childhood stuff which even two years ago, I did not think was going to happen as fast as it did,” he said. “But it’s not just about getting rid of screens for entertainment. It’s about reducing them as much as possible for academic learning as well if we want our kids to have deep transferrable knowledge in our heads.”

Source: https://www.theguardian.com/education/2026/aug/16/neuroscientistscreen-use-schools-educational-technology-jared-cooney-horvath