I think we're just in the earliest stages of learning how to harness digital technology to support education. We've been testing a parenting strategy that we refer to as benign neglect, which involves allowing them to spend a lot of time with iPads and laptops. Our 12-year-old has learned an astonishing amount about science from watching YouTube videos and success. And I'd say he's learned more in a year using Duolingo than he has in three years of Spanish classes in school. But what we did during the pandemic is test a very early, highly imperfect rudimentary approach to learning, using digital technologies.
“The future is digital,” they said. Then the pandemic came along and forced that digital future on us. We traded offices for Zooms, gyms for Pelotons, schools for YouTube videos, restaurants for takeout apps. And guess what? It sucked. Many of us longed for face-to-face interactions and real-world experiences, none more so than David Sax, whose new book, “The Future Is Analog,” urges us to stop fantasizing about technological possibilities and start focusing on what we actually need, because it turns out that what a lot of us need is decidedly low-tech.
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