There’s a peculiar irony within the historical past of schooling know-how.

For over half a century, the promise has remained unchanged: Digital instruments will revolutionize studying, liberating college students from the tyranny of rote instruction and enabling them to discover data on their very own phrases. And thru all that point, proof has accrued that this promise is basically unfulfilled. But the trade has grown from a modest enterprise right into a $400 billion behemoth, now woven into practically each facet of education. Jared Cooney Horvath’s The Digital Delusion is probably the most complete try but to elucidate this paradox and chart a path ahead.

Horvath, a neuroscientist who has labored with faculties throughout six continents, opens with a stark declare: “Our youngsters are much less cognitively succesful than we had been at their age.” This isn’t hyperbole dressed as provocation. For practically the whole twentieth century, IQ scores rose steadily; every technology gained roughly six factors over their mother and father, a phenomenon referred to as the Flynn Impact. Beginning across the 12 months 2000, this development reversed throughout a lot of the Western world. Crucially, in nations the place conventional education has remained largely intact, the decline has not occurred. However is that this the fault of know-how or merely a correlation?

The overlap of this cognitive decline with the meteoric rise of classroom know-how is troublesome to disregard. Over half of scholars now use computer systems for one to 4 hours every day in class; a full quarter spend greater than 4 hours on screens throughout a typical seven-hour college day. And the proof means that lower than half of this display screen time is spent on precise studying; college students are off process for as much as 38 minutes of each hour when utilizing classroom gadgets. Removed from the promised revolution, we seem like witnessing an unprecedented experiment in cognitive attrition.

The Knowledge

The energy of The Digital Delusion lies in its systematic marshalling of proof. Horvath attracts on worldwide assessments, meta-analyses, and domain-specific research to construct a case that’s troublesome to dismiss.

The worldwide image he paints is bleak. On PISA assessments, college students who use computer systems greater than six hours every day rating 66 factors decrease than nonusers—a niche equal to transferring from the fiftieth to the twenty fourth percentile, or roughly two letter grades. The 2022 PISA outcomes confirmed a 15-point drop in arithmetic, the biggest single-cycle decline within the evaluation’s historical past. TIMSS 2019 knowledge reveal comparable patterns: Day by day pc customers scored 41 factors decrease in arithmetic and 51 factors decrease in science in comparison with rare customers.

The meta-analytic proof is equally sobering. Horvath synthesizes 398 meta-analyses masking over 21,000 particular person research, discovering an general impact dimension of +0.29 customary deviations for schooling know-how. This sounds modestly constructive till one acknowledges that significant instructional beneficial properties sometimes require impact sizes of +0.40 to +0.50. Solely clever tutoring methods (+0.52) and interventions for studying issues (+0.61) persistently exceed this threshold. One-to-one laptop computer applications, that nice hope of schooling reformers, present an impact dimension of simply +0.16. As Horvath dryly notes, investing in air con has a extra helpful impression on studying than investing in a laptop computer for each pupil.

Three particular findings deserve consideration. First, studying comprehension is persistently worse on screens than on paper, with impact sizes of –0.15 general and –0.29 for expository textual content. Screens lack the spatial anchoring that helps reminiscence formation. Second, handwritten notes produce higher studying outcomes than typed notes, with impact sizes of –0.19 for fast recall and –0.42 when reviewing notes. Typing permits shallow transcription, whereas handwriting forces the mind to course of and condense data. Third, handwriting itself builds superb motor abilities linked to studying circuits, offering embodied engagement that typing can’t replicate.

The Mechanisms

What elevates this e book above a mere catalogue of failures is Horvath’s consideration to mechanisms. It isn’t sufficient to point out that screens hurt studying; we should perceive why. Right here, Horvath identifies three intractable issues rooted within the structure of human cognition.

The primary is consideration. The lateral prefrontal cortex can maintain just one ruleset at a time. People can’t actually multitask, solely change between duties. Every change incurs prices: time loss, diminished accuracy, and weaker reminiscence formation. Digital environments are particularly engineered for speedy process switching. They’re, as Horvath places it, “attempting to serve two masters: studying requires stillness; revenue requires consideration seize.” Youngsters now spend over 2,500 hours yearly utilizing gadgets for rapid-fire media consumption, in comparison with roughly 450 hours engaged in formal studying. The attentional habits shaped within the former context inevitably contaminate the latter.

The second mechanism is empathy. The scholar–instructor relationship produces one of many largest impact sizes in instructional analysis (+0.57), and affective empathy contributes equally (+0.68). However empathy, Horvath argues, is just not merely an emotion; it’s physiological synchrony between organic methods. When two folks work together, their mind exercise, coronary heart charge, and respiration align. Digital instruments lack biology, making real empathy unimaginable. The roughly 85 % dropout charges typical of on-line studying, echoed throughout pandemic-era distant education, supply a stark illustration of what occurs when this organic connection is severed.

The third downside is switch. The place we be taught turns into a part of what we be taught; context is encoded alongside content material. Selection in studying environments permits versatile retrieval, whereas the slim uniformity of digital contexts creates abilities which can be far much less more likely to switch to advanced real-world settings. Horvath attracts an essential distinction between subtractive and additive switch. Shifting from a extra demanding context to a much less demanding one (subtractive switch) is comparatively straightforward, however the reverse (additive switch) is just not. College students who be taught totally on screens develop abilities calibrated to that surroundings; when context modifications, significantly in high-pressure conditions like examinations, they discover themselves stranded.

The Myths

Maybe probably the most invaluable contribution of The Digital Delusion is its systematic dismantling of the foundational myths that maintain schooling know-how. Horvath identifies 5.

First is the declare that schooling is damaged. It was not, Horvath argues, till EdTech arrived and started measuring its success towards metrics it had itself created. Second is the assumption that multimedia enhances studying. Leisure and studying will not be the identical factor; the confusion between them produces what Horvath calls “Duolingo studying”: all engagement, little retention. Third is the notion that free selection results in higher studying. The fluency phantasm leads college students to desire what feels straightforward relatively than what truly works; ease of processing is mistaken for depth of understanding. Fourth is the belief that youngsters be taught greatest on their very own. The mind stops automated acquisition of advanced data round age 5. Thereafter, guided instruction persistently outperforms trial-and-error discovery. Fifth and eventually is the promise that clever tutors make youngsters extra clever. In slim functions, maybe that is true, however there isn’t a proof of significant switch past the particular abilities skilled.

The Stakes

No e book of this scope is with out limitations, and at instances the proof Horvath presents dangers overclaiming. The reversal of the Flynn Impact is an actual phenomenon, however its causes stay contested; attributing it primarily to schooling know-how, whereas believable, requires extra cautious causal evaluation than meta-analytic correlations can present.

A few of the worldwide evaluation knowledge additionally conflate several types of pc use. Not all display screen time is equal, and the dangerous results seem concentrated particularly functions. A pupil utilizing a well-designed clever tutoring system for spaced retrieval apply is doing one thing categorically totally different from a pupil clicking via a gamified quiz app designed to maximise time on platform.

These caveats however, The Digital Delusion is a powerful piece of labor and deserves critical consideration from anybody involved with schooling outcomes. The fairness implications alone ought to give one pause. Deprived college students, who most want the accrued knowledge of efficient instruction, are as an alternative subjected to the best doses of schooling know-how. Impact sizes for EdTech interventions amongst deprived populations (+0.18) are among the many weakest within the literature. We’re, in impact, conducting an experiment on the kids who can least afford to be topic to it.

There’s a deeper lesson right here concerning the nature of instructional progress. For 20 years, reformers have sought the simple path: undertake the shiny new software, the partaking platform, the personalised algorithm. However the proof suggests there are not any shortcuts. Efficient instruction is constructed on clear clarification, guided apply, deliberate suggestions, and the irreplaceable human relationship between instructor and pupil. These will not be glamorous methods; they don’t appeal to enterprise capital or generate TED Talks. However they work.

Probably the most highly effective facet of Horvath’s e book for me is the truth that he has a really deep and insightful understanding of how studying occurs. It’s clear he has not merely surveyed the literature however internalized its implications. He grasps why retrieval strengthens reminiscence whereas re-reading doesn’t, why effort is a function of studying relatively than a bug, and why the connection between instructor and pupil is just not merely sentimental however a robust agent of change and human growth. This issues as a result of so many critiques of EdTech fall into the lure of nostalgia or technophobia. Horvath’s considerations minimize deeper. He understands that digital instruments fail not as a result of they’re new however as a result of they’re constructed on a flawed mannequin of how the mind acquires data.

The e book closes with a provocation: “Will you be a Luddite with me?” The unique Luddites, he reminds us, weren’t technophobes raging towards progress; they had been expert craftsmen defending a lifestyle they valued towards instruments designed to reshape the world with out reckoning with the fee. Two centuries later, the battleground has shifted from factories to lecture rooms, however the query stays the identical. Schooling is just not a matter of instruments; it’s a matter of values. The Digital Delusion makes a compelling case that we’ve got overpassed what these values ought to be.

Carl Hendrick is the creator of How Studying Occurs and The Studying Dispatch publication.

Recommended quotation format:

Hendrick, C. (2026). “A Latter-Day Luddite Pulls the Plug on EdTech: New e book argues it’s not the instruments we use however the values we maintain that make the distinction in schooling.” Schooling Subsequent, 26(1), 10 February 2026.