Neuroscientist Jared Cooney Horvath said older generations “screwed up” giving students access to so much technology: “I genuinely hope Gen Z quickly figures that out and gets mad.”
I suspect that if Gen Z designed their own cognitive tests, their tests would determine that we older generations were less cognitively capable than them.
The reality is that every generation adapts in different ways to their own cognitive circumstances.
I get what you’re saying, but this isn’t a dig at Gen Z. For as long as we’ve been testing, which is like 50 years I think, the new generation has outperformed the previous one and that’s a good thing.
Having this generation underperform means that we have failed them and we need to figure out exactly how we fucked up. The evidence is really strong that technology in the classroom is a significant contributor.
As a Gen z who managed to not be an idiot I’m unconvinced it’s the technology when even in my elementary school years I was beginning to realize how shit the school system is. Technology probably doesn’t make things better but it was failing me in elementary school when the best of the best was the massive brick of a computer Macs in the computer lab was all we had
I’m not an expert on this, but I have listened to people talk who are and claim that you can pretty clearly link cognitive decline with the introduction of technology effectively everywhere.
I’m sure it’s not as clear as “tech bad” but it does seem like screen time and deferring the manual parts of learning to computers is not great for us.
See also Goodhart’s law “When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure”, which may not be completely relevant here, but is likely a factor (probably a lesser one than the systematic underfunding and other political meddling in US schools).
I suspect that if Gen Z designed their own cognitive tests, their tests would determine that we older generations were less cognitively capable than them.
The reality is that every generation adapts in different ways to their own cognitive circumstances.
I get what you’re saying, but this isn’t a dig at Gen Z. For as long as we’ve been testing, which is like 50 years I think, the new generation has outperformed the previous one and that’s a good thing.
Having this generation underperform means that we have failed them and we need to figure out exactly how we fucked up. The evidence is really strong that technology in the classroom is a significant contributor.
in the classroom specifically though? did they control for screen time outside of the classroom in the study?
As a Gen z who managed to not be an idiot I’m unconvinced it’s the technology when even in my elementary school years I was beginning to realize how shit the school system is. Technology probably doesn’t make things better but it was failing me in elementary school when the best of the best was the massive brick of a computer Macs in the computer lab was all we had
I’m not an expert on this, but I have listened to people talk who are and claim that you can pretty clearly link cognitive decline with the introduction of technology effectively everywhere.
I’m sure it’s not as clear as “tech bad” but it does seem like screen time and deferring the manual parts of learning to computers is not great for us.
It’s closer to 100 years at this point.
See also Goodhart’s law “When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure”, which may not be completely relevant here, but is likely a factor (probably a lesser one than the systematic underfunding and other political meddling in US schools).