More than 20 years ago, the classroom laptop program, which was regarded as a tool for "equal rights" in education, became popular in the United States. However, more and more education scholars and neuroscientists now question whether it may be counterproductive. In 2002, then-Maine Governor Angus King launched a program to issue an Apple laptop to every junior high school student, which has been called the beginning of the digital revolution in education. By 2016, the program had expanded to 66,000 devices and quickly became a model for other states across the country to follow.
By 2024, the United States will have invested more than $30 billion in distributing laptops and tablets to students. However, two decades later, the latest scientific testimony and global learning data show that the results of this technological experiment are far less promising than originally imagined.
Neuroscientist Jared Cooney Horwath pointed out in written testimony submitted to the U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation that there is a clear inverse relationship between the time students use digital devices during school and academic performance: The more screen exposure, the worse the academic performance. Citing OECD Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) and other global examination data, he said that Generation Z has become the first group in modern history to have overall lower standardized test scores than the previous generation. This not only means a decline in classroom ability, but is also seen as a "cognitive regression" in a broad sense.
Horvath emphasized that this is not an ideological dispute over whether technology should be used, but a question of whether educational tools conform to the laws of human learning. In his view, unchecked, sweeping digital expansion actually weakens the learning environment rather than enhancing it. The early notebook project was hoped to be a key step in the democratization of information, but the result of the ever-present presence of technology is that students' ability to sustain concentration and handle difficult thinking tasks has been quietly eroded.
In fact, signs of trouble had surfaced years ago. In 2017, Fortune magazine reported that fifteen years after implementing “one person, one machine,” test scores in Maine’s public schools have stagnated overall. Then-Governor Paul LePage even described the laptop project as "a colossal failure," even though the state's contract with Apple was still continuing.
Similar patterns aren't unique to Maine. As the number of school-issued devices proliferates across the United States, how students learn—and don’t learn—is changing. A 2014 behavioral study of 3,000 college students found that nearly two-thirds of the time students spent on laptops was spent on activities unrelated to class. The researchers point out that this distraction is extremely costly: every time attention is interrupted, refocusing is delayed and results in a significant decrease in the quality of memory formation.
In 2021, a survey from the EdWeek Research Center added another set of data: Most K-12 teachers use education technology for between one and four hours a day, and about a quarter of teachers say they use such tools for five or more hours a day. These numbers paint a paradoxical reality: Even when digital tools are designed to support learning, they often simultaneously provide wider and more insidious avenues for distraction.
Horvath's concerns extend beyond academic performance. He warned that at a time when global problems are becoming increasingly complex, human society cannot afford a generation that is systematically weakened in its ability to focus deeply, think abstractly, and persist in reasoning in the face of ambiguity. He told Fortune that, unfortunately, "ease" has never been a sign of learning; learning is inherently laborious, difficult, and often uncomfortable, but it is this "friction" that shapes deep learning and allows knowledge to be truly transferred and applied in the future.
The consequences of the digital classroom also extend beyond campus. A study released by Stanford University in 2025 stated that generative artificial intelligence has begun to reshape the labor market, with a particularly prominent impact on young workers in the early stages of their careers - mainly Generation Z. Research suggests that if the education system fails to effectively cultivate adaptability and higher-order thinking skills, the impact will be more severe when automation technology sweeps across all walks of life.
After tens of billions of dollars of investment and a whole generation of students’ digital experiments, more and more voices are beginning to question: Are schools inadvertently exchanging “convenience” and “connectivity” for students’ true depth of learning and thinking ability? The debate surrounding laptops and screen devices in the classroom is shifting from "whether technology is advanced" to a more fundamental question - how do we want the next generation to learn, how to think, and how to maintain clarity and resilience in a world full of uncertainty.