The Digital Classroom Dream Is Failing Our Children

Technology companies are aggressively marketing the "digital classroom" as a vision of education's future: one of faster learning, smarter students and children prepped for Silicon Valley success. Schools are buying into the hype, parents are being dazzled by devices, and policymakers are convinced that screens equal progress.

But the uncomfortable truth is that there's scant evidence to suggest EdTech actually improves learning - and growing evidence to suggest it harms it.

But despite all the rhetoric of transformation, digital learning has yielded no better results. Indeed, several studies now suggest that students using notebooks and textbooks outperform their screen-based peers by the equivalent of six extra months of learning. The science is clear: handwriting and reading physical books strengthen cognitive development and memory in ways no screen can replicate. Pens, paper, and books make smarter learners than tablets and apps.

Even countries that were once early adopters of the digital classroom are backpedaling. Sweden, once trumpeted as among the forerunners of EdTech in the world, backtracked on its push to digitize schooling when evidence emerged to show that extended screen time was damaging learning outcomes rather than improving them. If one of the most digitally literate countries in the world is pulling back, why is the rest of the world racing blindly ahead?

At its heart, this digital-by-default model relies on an illusion: that children can learn better via devices than from humans. But childhood is not a software problem to be optimized. Learning requires connection, curiosity, challenge, discipline, and mentorship-not notifications, gamified rewards, and algorithm-driven shortcuts.

Where the risk really lies, though, is in technology replacing those very experiences that shape thinking: boredom, deep focus, imagination, social play, handwriting, and human feedback. Swap these out for screens too early, and we'll indeed be raising a generation that will know how to swipe but not think.

It is time to slow the EdTech experiment down, not speed it up. Technology should be the tool, not the default. A more balanced approach would be Early Years & Primary: screen-free learning environments and no personal devices. Secondary schools should freeze student-facing EdTech until it is proven safe, educationally effective and respectful of privacy. Parents: a legal right to opt their children out of digital homework and virtual learning systems. Children deserve teachers, not tablets; relationships, not algorithms. If we really care about their minds, human-centred education needs to be restored before screens reshape childhood beyond repair