by Clare Morell, Senior policy analyst, Ethics and Public Policy Center.
There have been a lot of recent attempts to get phones out of schools. The data make clear that phones inhibit students’ learning, cause and exacerbate discipline issues, and harm students’ mental health. Evidence is also clear that phone bans work. Bans improve academic outcomes, especially for the lowest-performing students, and also improve the social environment.
While phones may be the worst culprits for distraction from learning during the school day, the “educational” screens many children are using in their classrooms, like Chromebooks, tablets, or laptops, are also hurting academic outcomes.
Despite the push to get every child a laptop or tablet, the so-called 1:1 laptop policy has failed students. Student math, reading, and science scores have been on the decline in the United States. The COVID-19 pandemic certainly contributed to recent drops in scores (and “virtual learning” on screens at home didn’t help), but the numbers have been declining since 2012.
The lowest performers are falling further behind. Screens were supposed to help solve these education inequalities, but that doesn’t seem to be panning out.
A study on the impact of children’s access to computers on educational outcomes found that despite the technology gap, educational attainment did not increase, and the schooling gap between private- and public-school students persisted.
Other research sheds light on why this is the case. A study out of Norway found that students who read text on computers performed worse on comprehension tests than students who read the same text on paper. Another study using MRI scans of 8-to-12-year-olds showed stronger reading circuits in the brains of those who spent more time reading paper books than those who spent their time on screens. Neuroscientists at the Teachers College of Columbia University found “evidence that children’s brains process written texts more deeply when they are presented in print rather than on a digital screen.”
The reality is that learning on screens does not yield the same benefits as learning on paper.
Maryanne Wolf, an education scholar at UCLA, is concerned that the skimming encouraged by screens — rapidly becoming thenew norm for reading — is making us lose the deep reading processes that are necessary for literacy and learning. She says, “The digital elephant in every classroom and home is whether our youth will develop full literacy.”
Writing schoolwork out by hand also has cognitive benefits that typing on a screen does not. One study showed that tracing out the ABCs, as opposed to typing them, leads tobetter and longer-lasting recognitionand understanding of letters. Writing by hand also improves memory and recallof words, which lays the foundation for literacy and learning.
Not only does the medium negatively affect educational outcomes, but the screens themselves are also distracting from actual learning. One mom said her daughter was having trouble focusing on the teacher because the other kids were playing video games on their tablets. These kids were using the school-provided screens to search anything and everything during school hours, including pornography.
Common Sense Media has found that nearly a third of teens have viewed pornography during the school day. Of these teens, 44 percent had viewed it on a school-issued device.
One teacher said they can’t stop it, because by the time they get to a student’s desk, the student clicks away from the site. The schools are not able to block sites fast enough.
A learning environment for children should not entail the distractions of constantly available video games or pornography or the bombardment of distractions on the screens of their peers. But parents feel powerless to change it. Unlike smartphones, which are within a parent’s power to opt out of for their child, school-issued screens are often forced upon parents and families against their will. Some parents are pushing back, however, asking that their kids be screen-free and complete their assignments by pencil and paper.
It is the job of schools to educate children and screens are antithetical to learning. They aren’t reducing the achievement gap or improving learning outcomes for our kids. Evidence from phone bans shows that removing screens does more to reduce educational inequalities and improve test scores than not. It’s time to get all the screens out of schools.
