There’s a growing narrative in education right now: people are questioning whether technology’s growing role in schools, especially with AI now front and centre, has gone too far. You don’t have to scroll far to find voices reminiscing about ‘better times’, when students ‘learned more’ with textbooks, pen and paper.

It’s certainly a story that attracts clicks. After all, research over the past two decades, including work highlighted by Jonathan Haidt in The Anxious Generation, shows a steady decline in test scores – particularly in America’s NAEP data and with similar trends elsewhere. The start of this data timeline happens to coincide with the first appearance of social media and smartphones. So it’s natural to assume that as these digital devices arrived, this is when learning outcomes began to suffer.

“EdTech” isn’t one entity

When we talk about EdTech, it’s a general term, taking in everything from apps that help pupils practise maths and phonics, right through to the Wi‑Fi systems that keep classrooms connected.

The media often implies that all EdTech is bad simply because young people are struggling to manage their personal device use. The issue isn’t the technology itself though, but more how it is used.

It’s agreed that the technology in some schools is poorly implemented and that can cause problems like distraction or over‑reliance. But there are countless examples of schools using digital tools to support long‑term gains in literacy and numeracy. Simple generalisations such as “EdTech doesn’t work” make it far too easy for decision‑makers to cut funding on the grounds that the school can’t afford it or that it doesn’t have any significant value for students.

It’s all about the skills

The bigger and, arguably, more complex issue is the deficit in digital skills. Students (and adults) are brilliant at consuming content, but less confident when it comes to creating, collaborating or thinking critically about what they see and share.

Consistent, high-quality digital citizenship skills are needed as a matter of urgency in an online environment where young people can be subject to all kinds of harms and deepfakes. An ideal situation would be for digital citizenship skills to be taught by every teacher in every subject, in every lesson, instead of it being relegated to a short-term standalone activity once a week.

Social media and wellbeing

It’s patently obvious that social media affects young people’s mental health – they even tell us this themselves. Young people struggle to regulate their screen time, but where did they learn to be online all the time? With adults constantly glued to their phones at home, it’s unrealistic to expect children to just automatically be able to self‑regulate. This is as much about parents learning how to deal with their own screen addiction and being conscious of what they are modelling to their children, as it is about school policy.

Of course, there should be stronger controls around social media. Platforms must be compelled do more to restrict harmful content – and there should be real consequences when they fail to do so. But blocking everything isn’t the solution; young people are nothing if not resourceful. The long‑term solution lies with digital citizenship teaching and learning in schools, discussing and practising how to live thoughtfully, safely and productively online.

And now there’s AI…

AI has reignited the whole tech-use debate, exacerbating screen time just when we were finally, as a global society, starting to move towards limiting it via smartphone and social media bans (not the solution, by the way, but a topic for another time). AI’s creep into classrooms, workplaces and the rest of our lives has made the old questions about using EdTech in school and at home feel almost outdated in a really, really short time. It’s not going away. It’s reshaping our world faster than we can legislate for – and employers are already expecting people to be fluent in its use.

It’s clear that we need to help students understand and use AI responsibly and creatively. Avoiding it might feel safer but, in truth, it leaves children less prepared for the real world.

What’s next?

Digital education in an ideal world should be focusing on quality and skills. So, for instance, investing in quality digital tools that genuinely support learning, training teachers and leaders to use technology purposefully, and building digital citizenship and ethics into the curriculum. In addition, there’s a pressing need to help parents set healthy digital habits at home.

Building digital confidence has to be the way forward, as the world revolves around technology. Equipping young people with digital skills for the world they’re already living in now is a priority, for their own safety, wellbeing and future prospects. There’s really no time to waste.

Al Kingsley MBE

Beyond the EdTech backlash