When should screens become part of the school day?

Neuroscientist and educator Dr Jared Cooney Horvath, whose new book The Digital Delusion has just been published in the UK, has brought renewed attention to the issue. In evidence presented to the US Senate, Horvath drew on large-scale international studies, including PISA, TIMSS and PIRLS, to argue that higher levels of classroom screen use are consistently associated with poorer outcomes in reading, mathematics and science.

His message is not anti-technology. It is about understanding how children learn best.

Research suggests that students tend to understand and retain complex information more effectively when reading on paper rather than on screens, while handwriting can support learning and memory in ways that typing does not.

Why might screens make a difference? Learning requires attention.

Sustained concentration, deep thinking and the formation of memories are supported by focused, uninterrupted engagement. Digital environments, by contrast, frequently encourage speed, novelty and switching between tasks.

The concern is therefore not simply about screen time. It is about what screens may displace: sustained attention, conversation, handwriting, physical activity, practical experience and direct engagement with teachers, other children and the world around them.

So what should take their place? Here, another strand of recent research becomes particularly interesting.

A study from the University of Winchester, led by Professor Bill Lucas and Dr Ellen Spencer, examined approaches to education associated with successful learning and wellbeing. It identified four particularly important elements:

Experiential learning, interdisciplinary learning, play and creativity - all key parts of Waldorf education.

These approaches can support engagement and deeper understanding while developing capabilities such as problem-solving, collaboration and adaptability.

Importantly, the research challenges the idea that schools must choose between teaching knowledge and developing skills. Children develop both most powerfully when knowledge is encountered, explored and applied in meaningful ways.

An old educational idea with new relevance. This debate has particular resonance for Steiner Waldorf education.

Long before tablets, smartphones or artificial intelligence existed, Waldorf education developed around the idea that children's education should begin with direct experience of the world.

Waldorf schools have therefore long taken a deliberately low-tech approach to the primary classroom. Children learn through stories and books, conversation and discussion, handwriting and drawing, practical mathematics and science, music, movement, craft, gardening and engagement with the natural world.

This isn't about rejecting technology. It is about sequence.

The aim is first to develop the human capacities on which effective use of technology ultimately depends: concentration, curiosity, imagination, judgement, creativity, problem-solving and confidence. Digital technology can then be introduced increasingly as children mature — consciously and purposefully, as a tool for learning rather than as the environment in which learning takes place.

Real-world first. Digital tools later. The question is becoming more urgent as artificial intelligence enters education.

Preparing children for an increasingly technological future cannot simply mean exposing them to more technology, earlier.

They will certainly need digital knowledge and skills. But they will also need something perhaps even more important: the capacity to think independently, concentrate deeply, distinguish reliable information from unreliable information, solve unfamiliar problems, work creatively with others and exercise judgement about when — and when not — to use technology.

The emerging evidence therefore points towards a different kind of balance.

Real-world learning first. Digital tools later — when children have developed the maturity and skills to be in control of the technology, rather than the other way around.

Further reading and viewing

Dr Jared Cooney Horvath gave evidence on classroom technology to the US Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation in January 2026. His presentation and written testimony are available online. His new book, The Digital Delusion: How Classroom Technology Harms Our Children’s Learning – and How to Help Them Thrive Again, was published in the UK in August 2026.

The University of Winchester research by Professor Bill Lucas and Dr Ellen Spencer is also available through Waldorf UK.