The case against screens in schools

As for the notion that a screen device somehow leads to better educational outcomes, there has been a growing mountain of research indicating just the opposite. For example:

The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD)said in a 2015 report that heavy users of computers in the classroom “do a lot worse in most learning outcomes.”

An exhaustive meta-study conducted by Durham University in 2012 that systemically reviewed 48 studies examining technology’s impact on learn- ing found that “technologybased interventions tend to produce just slightly lower levels of improvement when compared with other researched interventions and approaches.”

A 2015 London School of Economics study that looked at over 140,000 students across a decade found that when phones were removed from the classroom, test scores went up 6 percent. For students with special needs or those from challenged socioeconomic backgrounds, test scores went up a whopping 14 percent when distracting phones were eliminated.

Psychologist and author of “Failure to Connect: How Computers Affect Our Children’s Minds,” Jane Healy spent years researching computer use in schools. While she expected to find that computers in the classroom would be beneficial, Healy now feels that “time on the computer might interfere with development of everything from the young child’s motor skills to his or her ability to distinguish between reality and fantasy.”