Ed-Tech is a Hoax
And what we can learn about the data as parents
In his new book, The Digital Delusion, Dr. Jared Cooney Horvath doesn’t just come for smartphones or social media apps. He comes for screens. Period.
I’m obsessed with this book, and honestly, it’s because of the zingers. My favorite? “Many edtech tools promise ‘personalized learning,’ but deliver little more than "‘customized comfort’.” Ouch. And so incredibly true.
What makes this book a masterpiece is how Dr. Cooney Horvath pulls back the curtain on the fuzzy math used to sell us on edtech. He exposes how tech companies claim digital testing has a negligible impact on scores, while hiding the fact that they constantly “re-norm” the averages—essentially moving the goalposts so you can’t see how much ground our kids are actually losing.
Beyond the data, he confirms every parent’s suspicion: if there is a screen in front of a child, they will spend the vast majority of their time off-task. This constant toggling between apps isn’t just a distraction; it’s a massive drain on cognitive energy that leaves the brain too exhausted to actually learn.
I was recently sharing my perspective on kids and screens, and the data to support my argument, when someone said “that’s silly-that’s like saying your child can’t have a hammer because they can hurt someone.” What’s wild is that the very next day I read that exact example in the book! And what does Dr. Cooney Horvath say to that parent? He argues that a tool is measured by the greatest frequency in which it’s used. A hammer, while it could be used to hurt someone, most regularly is used for building. Digital devices on the other end, while claiming to promote learning, are-as he watched his teenage nieces complete homework-more often used not for learning.
By the time Dr. Cooney Horvath is finished unpacking the research, you realize that the digital “efficiency” we’ve been promised is actually a recipe for mental burnout and academic decline.
Jared is a neuroscientist with a background in education—a total unicorn. He has the biological pedigree to understand the brain and the educator’s soul to explain it to the rest of us. I’ve read the book so you don’t have to, but for those of us trying to explain to our kids (or our school boards) WHY screens are stunting development, here are the three big takeaways.
1. The “GPS” Problem: Why Paper Beats the Flicker
We’ve all seen it: our kid reads a chapter on a tablet, closes the app, and has absolutely no idea what they just read. We assume they weren’t paying attention. The science says their brain was actually “lost.”
Think of your child’s brain not as a computer hard drive, but as a hiker exploring a new trail. We learn by “mapping” information to a physical place. You remember a specific quote because it was at the bottom left of a heavy, crinkly page. Your brain uses “place cells” in the hippocampus to anchor that fact to a 3D location.
When kids read on a screen, that map is constantly shifting as they scroll. This triggers a “flicker effect” that essentially wipes the brain’s GPS clean every few seconds. By the time they finish, they’ve spent all their “cognitive fuel” just trying to stay oriented, leaving nothing left for deep thinking. Paper isn’t old-fashioned; it’s a 3D world that allows the brain to actually “file” information away.
The Science: Your brain uses “place cells” in the hippocampus to anchor facts to a specific 3D location.
The “Flicker” Effect: Scrolling on a screen destroys these anchors. Every time the text moves, your brain’s internal GPS has to “reset,” leaving no energy left for actual memory.
The Result: Your kid can read a whole chapter for a research project on a tablet and have zero clue what to write, but they can remember a quote from a physical book because “it was at the bottom left of that heavy page.”
Real-World Example:
Digital: Your teen “skims” a history article on a laptop, closing 15 tabs afterward with no idea of the timeline or clear path forward to write the research paper.
Analog: Your teen highlights a physical textbook. Later, they recall the info by mentally “seeing” the yellow highlighter mark on the middle of the right-hand page.
2. The Comfort Trap: Personalized vs. Challenged
Edtech loves the phrase “personalized learning.” But as Dr. Cooney Horvath points out that it’s usually just code for “comfortable learning.”
If you follow this Substack, you know I’m constantly beating the drum for resilience over comfort. Digital worlds—from Google searches to AI companions—are “customized” to your child’s current interests. This creates a digital echo chamber where they are never challenged, never uncomfortable, and never exposed to conflicting information.
Think about the difference between a Kindle recommendation and a library shelf. On a device, the algorithm shows you more of what you already like. At the library, my kids have to “scroll” through physical spines, judging books by their covers and accidentally discovering genres they never would have clicked on. Customized learning limits diverse thoughts. It shrinks their world until it’s perfectly comfortable and perfectly stagnant.
The Algorithm Problem: Apps are designed to know exactly what your kid likes and give them more of it.
The Resistance Gap: Growth requires “cognitive dissonance”—the discomfort of being wrong or seeing something new. Digital worlds are designed to remove that friction.
The Result: We are creating a generation that is “customized” into a bubble where they never have to struggle with a conflicting opinion or a difficult, non-intuitive concept.
Real-World Example:
Digital: An app suggests three more “Dinosaur” books because your kid liked one, keeping them in a narrow loop.
Analog: Your kid goes to the library for a dinosaur book but has to walk past the Space and Ocean sections, accidentally discovering a brand new interest because they saw a cool cover on a shelf.
3. Tools vs. Skills: The “Outsourcing” Crisis
This is Dr. Cooney Horvath’s essential thesis: School should never be about learning tools; it must be about learning skills.
If we teach a child a specific “tool” (like a specific coding language or app), they become incompetent the moment that tool evolves or disappears. But if we teach them skills—how to synthesize ideas, research a concept, and work with others—they can manage any tool the future throws at them.
We’re told laptops prepare kids for the future, but brain science (and two decades of practical research) suggests the opposite. When a child uses a digital tool to solve a problem, the device “outsources” the thinking. It acts as a mental crutch that prevents the brain from doing the heavy lifting. To build a permanent skill, the brain must go through “productive struggle”—literally forging new neural pathways that only happen when the child does the work.
It’s the difference between being a passenger following a “blue line” on a GPS versus learning to drive the car yourself. Obviously one is learning how to drive and the other “thinks” they are learning how to drive. On a screen, kids are often just passengers. This is why they can ace a digital math game but feel totally lost when faced with a real-life word math problem.
The claim that kids need to learn to code or access technology at a young age to be skilled in the progressional world? Completely debunked. The average AI developer today did not have AI growing up. The creators of social media didn’t have social media growing up. It’s not about access to a tool that creates competency, it’s about developing complex thinking that allows your kids to navigate jobs and be innovators in the future.
The Outsourcing Trap: When a child uses AI or a “smart” app to solve a problem, the device does the thinking. The brain stays in the “passenger seat.”
Productive Struggle: To build a permanent skill, the brain must physically rewire itself. This only happens when the child—not the computer—does the heavy lifting.
The Result: If we teach “tools” (like how to use a specific software), the knowledge becomes obsolete the moment the software updates. If we teach “skills” (like how to summarize an argument), they are set for life.
Real-World Example:
The Tool: Learning to use a specific AI prompt to write an essay or how to incorporate specific AI tools into learning. If the AI changes or is unavailable, the kid is stuck.
The Skill: Learning how to gather evidence, organize a thought, and write a persuasive paragraph by hand. This skill works whether they have a computer or just a piece of scrap paper.
The Bottom Line
We’ve been sold a digital promise that actually bypasses the very struggle our kids need to grow, develop, and be successful in the future.. By choosing paper over pixels, you’re giving your child a physical world to map and a skill set that won’t become obsolete-really setting them up for a future which we can’t even fathom yet. . It’s time to stop worrying about being old-fashioned and start protecting the biological environment our kids need to thrive and develop. Let’s trade the customized comfort of the screen for the durable, lifelong power of a brain that actually knows how to do the work.
Are your kids’ schools leaning harder into “personalized” digital tools? I’d love to hear if you’re seeing this “customized comfort” playing out in your own home.