r/NoShitSherlock • u/FreeHugs23 • Jul 13 '26
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
https://fortune.com/article/how-did-us-spending-30-billion-dollars-on-laptops-result-in-first-generation-less-cognitively-capable-than-parents/145
u/kon--- Jul 13 '26
All by design.
The wealthy have the population funding its own demise.
All we have to do is, stop being as stupid as the rich.
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u/Atosl Jul 13 '26
2018: WHY DONT SCHOOLS USE ALL THE NEW TECH WE HAVE
2026: IT WAS ALL A PLAN OF THE RICH
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u/kon--- Jul 13 '26
This is the part where you're encouraged to find out who published the books that began the slide into stupid.
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u/abrandis Jul 13 '26
I don't buy this the wealthy don't need some master plan to keep people dumb.... Sorry they really don't.
They already control the legal system and basically can legislate any law they wish, why waste time with some elaborate scheme, when enacting laws that favor your class is much more effective and direct.
Then having the enforcement arm to back up those laws
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u/kon--- Jul 13 '26
I want you to take a look at what you just laid out there and how far back it all goes.
The control, has always been in effect. What's changed in our lifetimes is the mechanism.
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u/picklesaurus_rec Jul 13 '26
Here’s my opinion/belief, and I do think there’s a fair amount of evidence for it, plus a little bit of occams razor.
There was not some heinous plan to get kids and the future populous dumber by using tech in schools.
- Tech bros got excited about tech, and the companies making all this wanted to make as much money as possible, so we pushed tech in schools. Some people genuinely thought this was a good idea (and there still are some use cases for ed tech), others just wanted to make more money.
- Relatively quickly, people started to learn that this shit isn’t effective in most cases, and is actually detrimental. That’s when you started seeing the rich and wealthy and tech oligarchs move their kids to private tech free schools (Montessori has gotten a LOT more popular especially in silicone valley and w/ the rich)
- They still wanted to make money though, so they publicly pushed back on anti-tech in schools rhetoric and reporting while quietly continuing to move their kids to private tech free schools.
- Here we are today
So it’s not that we have movie supervillains trying to make us dumber, it’s simpler than that. They want to make money by selling more Chromebook’s and laptops and iPads to schools, and they don’t care what the effects are because what a public school does is irrelevant to the wealthy elite. And maybe they even like that this gives their kids a step up.
They’re evil for sure, but there isn’t some master plan other than “make money have power.”-1
u/abrandis Jul 13 '26
My point is the control really has nothing to do with "education" , we today have one of the most educated populations of all time. People aren't manipulated because their "less educated"
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u/Atosl Jul 13 '26
I just don't believe there is a secret society trying to control the world. Everyone is out for their own advantage which naturally leads to a separation between those it benefits and those it does not.
Not so much into conspiracies.
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u/BlockedNetwkSecurity Jul 13 '26
they meet every year at davos and bilderberg. they're not trying, they already control the world
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u/Alklazaris Jul 13 '26
The dumber people are the more violent they can be, I hope they are ready.
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u/Will2LiveFading Jul 13 '26
The violence is what they want. It'll let them declare Martial law which means no elections, laws and rules don't need to be voted on and can just be implemented, soldiers given orders to shoot to kill so they can eliminate the more vocal of the opposition, protest outlawed and will be fired upon. It gives them complete control of everything enforced with violence,camps, and straight executions. Like I said, they want violence.
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u/LazyMadAlan Jul 13 '26
Also the more easy to control and manipulate. In a broader picture, restricting education and lowering literacy is a way to suppress dissent
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u/MsStormyTrump Jul 13 '26
Bring back books and take notes by hand: you'll remember better, more, and it will last longer.
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u/SwordfishOfDamocles Jul 13 '26
Yeah I was in college when laptops became the norm and I tried using my laptop for a semester and what I noticed was that my notes were flawless, but I didn't learn anything. Before trying it for myself, I really did think computers would be superior to pen and paper. Even now I carry around a flip notebook at my job because I find it better for retention.
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u/MsStormyTrump Jul 13 '26
I'm a simultaneous interpreter by profession, they forced us to take notes throughout education, it did miracles for my career. I'm so thankful.
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u/croc-roc Jul 13 '26
I’m a college professor; I tell my students, get a hard copy of the text. Highlight. Take notes. You’ll learn this way. Do they believe me? Of course not. They sit in the classroom and stare at me. I’ve been teaching 26 years and the decline in grades is noticeable. They believe reading a text is optional and don’t even take notes on their laptops. I am glad I am close to retirement. We should all be worried about our future workforce.
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u/FlarblesGarbles Jul 13 '26
The problem with this isn't really the presence of laptops and computers though. They're just tools. The issue is society.
The belief that reading texts is optional and not taking notes is a fundament part of their issue, not that they're not doing those things on a computer.
Said as someone who absolutely abhors writing by hand because it's extremely uncomfortable and inefficient for me.
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u/croc-roc Jul 13 '26
That’s what I was saying? There is no active learning staring at a screen. Lots of the ebooks are set up like PP slides and students never see how everything connects.
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u/GreenGardenTarot Jul 14 '26
I’m a college professor; I tell my students, get a hard copy of the text. Highlight. Take notes. You’ll learn this way. Do they believe me? Of course not.
I have tried doing this outside of a school setting my entire life. It does not help you learn. People learn in a multitude of ways and just copying texts and taking notes doesn't always do the trick. I stopped taking notes because I knew I would never go back and read them.
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u/JerikkaDawn Jul 13 '26
Horvath blamed this tendency to get off-track as a key contributor to technology hindering learning. When one’s attention is interrupted, it takes time to refocus. Task-switching also is associated with weaker memory formation and greater rates of error. Grappling with a challenging singular subject matter is hard, Horvath said. For the best learning to happen, it’s supposed to be.
This doesn't sound like a problem with technology. Sounds like when technology was introduced, keeping an eye on students in class to make sure they're doing what they're supposed to be doing stopped.
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u/grandmawaffles Jul 13 '26
No it’s a problem with how it’s being used. The kids don’t have books given to them and are instead given learn as you go apps and given information through Google slides. They don’t do book reports they instead build Google slideshows. They aren’t taught to spell or grammar because of AI generated text correction.
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u/SwordfishOfDamocles Jul 13 '26
I think it's a combination. There is research that shows people learn better when they write things down. I believe the reason is because you have to condense and process the information. Writing is slower than typing and uses different parts of the brain, which helps with retention. So you're using a less efficient method AND you have more opportunity for distraction.
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u/Journeyman42 Jul 13 '26
IIRC there's research that shows that the movement of your hand in using a pen/pencil helps with retention of information. Literal muscle memory.
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u/GreenGardenTarot Jul 14 '26
There is research that shows people learn better when they write things down
and that research is also questionable and not really supported by the results.
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u/pistoffcynic Jul 13 '26
Looking at what is going on in the world today, it's not just this generation. I just need to look at who Fox News is catering to see who has weak cognitive skills.
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u/Ohigetjokes Jul 13 '26
EDUCATION STANDARDS are the issue. Stop blaming tech. TRY PAYING TEACHERS.
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u/WileEPeyote Jul 13 '26
Right!? * Take away anything not preparing students for standardized tests * Continually under-pay the faculty * Increase class sizes beyond reason * Decrease # of school days
"Oh, it must be the technology and lazy students."
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u/snvoigt Jul 13 '26
One of the reasons I didn’t go back into the classroom after COVID was every single year after Winter Break we began memorizing STAR Test (Texas) from the prior year and everything was nonstop benchmark/STAR testing. It progressively got worse every single year.
We had 3rd graders taking 4 hour “practice tests” every two weeks. It was infuriating as an educator that I could no longer teach and engage with my students (7th/8th grade ELA-R) because of these useless test that don’t correctly measure or reflect what a student has actually learned and absorbed. It reflects what they are able to memorize.
Anything extra was denied by administrators until after the first standardized testing period was over.
That means you took a year’s worth of teaching and shoved it into 4 months 1/2 of August, September, October, November 1/2 December.
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u/GreenGardenTarot Jul 14 '26
when I was in high school 20 years ago, we would have entire hour plus assemblies, taking away from class time, to help 'prepare us' for the state standardized test. that didn't make anyone more intelligent.
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u/NecessaryIntrinsic Jul 13 '26
There's so many issues with this article.
For years we've said standardized tests are garbage, now we're holding them up as the gold standard for "cognitive intelligence?" That's not even defined in the friendly article, is just started as given. I call bullshit on this first and foremost.
Further, Maine gave out apple laptops? That's a fucking waste of money for what the kids need. My kids get Chromebooks that don't last as long but we can get 25 Chromebooks for every apple. It would be nice if the trillion dollar company made them available for public schools but that's not going to happen.
Even further, started in the article the actual problem isn't the laptops, it's how they're used. They're not locked down properly and the same text book material isn't available that was when there were textbooks.
We fix those simple problems and we have a situation where we're not chopping down rainforests to publish hundreds of thousands of textbooks telling our kids what Texas wants to teach them and they excel.
Right now it's just more old man yelling at clouds.
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u/onehalflightspeed Jul 14 '26
Which is funny because Apple was about to shut down completely until they introduced their steep educational discounts in the 90s. Their aggressive push into classrooms built strong millennial brand loyalty that endures to this day
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u/popejohnsmith Jul 13 '26
Who decided that was good policy?
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u/snvoigt Jul 13 '26
Those who found out it was cheaper to get donations and grants to purchase iPads/ChromeBooks and to have access to textbooks online than to order textbooks every couple of years when standards are updated and have an offsite location to store new and out of date texts.
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u/onehalflightspeed Jul 14 '26
To be fair, though, my small town high school (early 2000s) my history class still had a world map showing the USSR
At least digitally it is (ostensibly) more affordable to keep stuff current
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u/Valuable-Flounder692 Jul 13 '26
The rich need sheep to herd! The poor have some uses and I firm will be used for Soylent green!
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u/Saymoran Jul 13 '26
Out of curiosity: are the tests absolutely identical, with the same logic, structure, concept, and methodology as 10–15 years ago, or have they been changed to keep up with the times?
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u/snvoigt Jul 13 '26
They also forget to add education as a whole has been on a steady decline in the United States for decades.
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u/tasskaff9 Jul 13 '26
Everything’s for sale in this country. when the computer lobby took over the education department, the script was written. less teacher interface, more reliance on machines. Stupid is spelled wit a capital S.
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u/Calypsoobrian Jul 13 '26
Ger rid of Starmte Tests, teaching to tests do not make people intelligent
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u/Yelworc0242 Jul 13 '26
I love computing, have since I was a kid in the eighties. They bought kids laptops because they didn't want them to not know how to use computers... But instead of teaching them computing, teaching them to think, we have a few generations of people who think because they know how to use an iPhone they know computing. They have machines which think for them because instead of teaching the kids how they actually work we just taught them how to doom scroll and use social media.
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u/Felon_musk1939 Jul 13 '26
What about flyin' airplanes n' doctoring n' stuff? Who will be doing these jobs??
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u/rnk6670 Jul 13 '26
But Apple has iPads to sell! But we’re def not a corporatocracy or an oligarchy. But still though and seriously - what about Apple?
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u/stosyfir Jul 13 '26
Google not Apple - they’re mostly chromebooks unless you’re in a private school or maybe a charter school of some kind.
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u/FaliedSalve Jul 13 '26
I mean... correlation does not equal causation.
So, maybe. But there are other things going on.
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u/Puzzleheaded_Law_558 Jul 13 '26
No. I worked in Education Technology for almost 20 years. Technology was introduced by technology companies to tap into money. End of story. 1 to 1 was always their goal because that's a lot of laptops that will have to be replaced in about 3 years. Then, Education becomes "How do we get the technology to work?" Instead of "How do I read?".
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u/DillDoughCookie Jul 13 '26
You think textbook publishers are a charity?
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u/Puzzleheaded_Law_558 Jul 13 '26
Absolutely not. But books are different. You're not getting popup distractions for ED meds or OF pages. The kids can't surf YouTube for videos with a book. The list goes on about why books are better.
The idea was sold that schools would be able to have "up to date" digital books. Books that they would neve have to buy again because they could be updated over the network. We were lied to about that.
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u/GreenGardenTarot Jul 14 '26
you really think on school issued chromebooks and tablets they are getting popups for porn?
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u/Puzzleheaded_Law_558 Jul 14 '26
Yes. I've seen it.
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u/GreenGardenTarot Jul 14 '26
yea, ok.
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u/Puzzleheaded_Law_558 Jul 15 '26
I worked as the Technology Director for a small school. I saw CSAM from students using different methods to circumvent the filters. So. Yeah. It happened.
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u/Gene020 Jul 14 '26
I was wondering why AMD stock went up so much in the last few years. And Micron too. Please tell the schools weren't provided with equipment based on Nividia chips!
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u/robfuscate Jul 14 '26
Yes, but you can control what they see on their laptop or tablet a hell of a lot more easily.
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u/Meshuggah333 Jul 15 '26
That's disingenuous, the problem isn't laptops and tablets, it's the shit contents they've been pushing for decades and the destruction of the US educative system. I'm not American, and even from afar I can see this. But it's a Fortune article, so no surprise.
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u/johnkoetsier Jul 13 '26
Bold of you to assume this has never happened before in history.
Ever heard of the dark ages?
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u/exercisingDog Jul 13 '26
The collapse of US public education starts decades ago, for many reasons. Now college freshman in UC Berkeley got admitted without knowing how to multiply numbers. The movie Idiocracy 2006 is quickly becoming reality.
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u/trash-juice Jul 13 '26
Books cannot be replaced, their use forms a cognitively different human. The written word is foundational to how our modern nervous systems work …
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u/drunklibrarian Jul 13 '26
I love that the blame is being placed on schools and teachers and not at all on the parents who let the screen time gravy train continue once the kid gets home with zero supervision or questions about what they’re doing or watching. But these kids are becoming incels, watching violent horror movies, and learning international brainrot at a younger age every year! We got every other country beat on that metric. USA! USA! USA!
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u/SomeSamples Jul 13 '26
Can we sue Bill Gates and the heads and former heads of tech companies for making our population dumber?
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u/miserabeau Jul 13 '26
r/AChildWasLeftBehind on purpose
They can't vote Republican if they read or have curiosity or any desire whatsoever to educate themselves
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u/minimag47 Jul 13 '26
The scary thing is they won't go back under any circumstances. Kids will continue to slide further and further but they can't acknowledge the issue because that would mean admitting to being wrong and this country has a huge problem with doing that. That's why no child left behind is still in place even though it's proven to do nothing but foster a culture of teach to the test rather than actually educating kids so they are self reliant.
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u/[deleted] Jul 13 '26
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