Here’s What’s Really Wrong with Tech in Classrooms

Published: June 25, 2026

feliphe-schiarolli-hes6nUC1MVc-unsplash — Photo from Feliphe Schiarolli via Unsplash

By Kayla DeKraker

Author and social psychologist Jonathan Haidt has some strong feelings about school-issued tech.

“Parents are finding all kinds of apps on their kids’ school-issued Chromebooks,” he wrote in a recent Instagram post that included a Wall Street Journal article about parents’ frustrations with ed tech.

“It can be hard for schools to monitor and tamp down every addictive app, especially with things like YouTube, which can have some educational value,” he said. “That includes Google Docs, which have value, but are constantly used for texting.”

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According to the WSJ, one father, Yair Lev, was “horrified” to discovered the content available to his 7-year-old daughter on her Chromebook.

“I was in tears. It’s like the computer stole her,” he said.

Another dad said that his son’s Chromebook has contributed to his myopia and prebedtime anxiety.

“These electronics have ruined parenting. It’s a whack-a-mole game,” he said. His sixth-grade son was able to download a poker-like game onto the device. “Even he says it’s so addictive I can’t stop playing it,” said the dad. “It’s like the electronic fentanyl.”

At the end of the day, schools are accountable for what children can access on the devices they hand out.

“…schools must control these devices — including what apps are on them, whether students can take them home, and how often they are used in class,” Haidt explained. “I don’t see why a school-issued device should have poker-like games on it.”

Many parents like Lev are speaking out about the problems with school-issued devices.

“Parents are organizing across the US and internationally around this. Sweden is reversing course and, having gone full steam on ed tech some years ago, are now back to paper and pencils,” Haidt said.

School screen use increased dramatically during the COVID pandemic, AP reported.

“It makes me furious,” a mom named Katie Pace said. “My daughter went to middle school and was sent home with a screen addiction in her backpack.”

LAUSD school board member Nick Melvoin suggested a “reset.”

“During the pandemic, getting kids devices was a lifeline. Now, it’s time that we reset,” he said.

Like many parents, mom Kristina Jackson believes that long-term damage will be caused by school tech use.

“Ten years from now, I can’t imagine us looking back with any other reaction than: ‘How could we have been so naive that we just handed these devices to our kids,’” she said.

These concerns, among others, are exactly what Haidt highlights in his book The Anxious Generation.

His book “presents more than a dozen mechanisms by which this ‘great rewiring of childhood’ has interfered with children’s social and neurological development, covering everything from sleep deprivation to attention fragmentation, addiction, loneliness, social contagion, social comparison and perfectionism,” the synopsis says.

As more and more parents are discovering, keeping children away from devices seems like a wise choice.

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