The Digital Delusion

An urgent, deeply researched reckoning with the role of tech in our classrooms – from neuroscientist, researcher and former teacher Dr Jared Cooney Horvath.

Our children are struggling. Is classroom technology to blame?

For the first time in recent history, children are falling behind previous generations on many key measures of learning and cognitive development.

Schools, once alive with human connection, are now dominated by screens and digital tools. The result is unmistakable: falling performance, fractured attention, and the slow erosion of rigorous thought.

Here, neuroscientist and educator Dr Jared Cooney Horvath reveals how the widespread use of laptops, learning apps, and classroom AI is undermining how children learn and develop. Drawing on decades of research, he exposes the myths driving the rise of ‘EdTech’ to show:

• Why pupils who use computers at school every day score up to a year and a half behind their peers.
• How on-screen reading causes a collapse in learning, triggering a shift from deep comprehension to shallow skimming.
• What AI is doing to classrooms – accelerating cognitive outsourcing and encouraging shallow thinking and overconfidence.

But it isn’t too late to fight back. Horvath lays out a clear path for putting people – not programmes – back at the centre of education, offering practical strategies for families to reassess device use at home and for educators to restore attention-rich learning environments.

His book is not a call to reject technology. It’s a call to reclaim real learning.

'Terrifying and essential reading.' HUGH GRANT, BAFTA-Winning Actor and Education Advocate

'Not anti-tech, but pro-learning. If you are an educator or a parent, you’ll want to read this book.' JONATHAN HAIDT, bestselling author of The Anxious Generation

'Empowers us to fight back to bring learning back to our schools.' ANNA LEMBKE, bestselling author of Dopamine Nation

'A thoughtful and important takedown that every parent should read. It will liberate you – and change how you think about your children’s learning.' JOHANN HARI, bestselling author of Stolen Focus

© Jared Cooney Horvath 2026 (P) Penguin Audio 2026