The Digital Delusion: The False Promise of Ed Tech w/ Dr. Jared Cooney Horvath

A screen is built to do one thing well: split your attention across as many things as possible, as fast as possible. A developing brain needs the opposite— sustained, undivided focus— to learn anything at all. Cognitive neuroscientist Dr. Jared Cooney Horvath doesn't think ed-tech is failing kids by accident. He thinks it's failing them because the two things it's built to do are the same two things guaranteed to keep them from learning.

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In this episode, Dr. Jared Cooney Horvath, a former classroom teacher turned cognitive neuroscientist and author of the new book The Digital Delusion, walks Alix through why so much of what makes a screen effective is exactly what makes it useless for learning: it invites multitasking when the brain needs focus, it rewards speed when comprehension requires slowing down, and it replaces face-to-face attention with something that looks like connection but doesn't function like it. Dr. Horvath takes us back over a deacde ago to trace how we got here, where a tool to fail students by design continues to become more embedded into the classroom.

Further reading & resources:

• Technopoly: The Surrender of Culture to Technology — Neil Postman
• The Pen Is Mightier Than the Keyboard — Mueller & Oppenheimer, Psychological Science, April 2014
• This laptop had to fail so Chromebooks could become back-to-school essentials — Tech Radar, August 2022
• Chromebook Remorse: Tech Backlash at Schools Extends Beyond Phones — The New York Times, May 2026

Buy The Digital Delusion: How Classroom Technology Harms Our Kids' Learning by Dr. Jared Cooney Horvath through The Maybe on Bookshop.org! Every purchases supports the author and independent bookstores across the country.

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Computer Says Maybe is produced by Kushal Dev, Marion Wellington, Sarah Myles, Van Newman, and Zoe Trout