Why Education Is Important

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Brain development requires physical play and effortful cognition.

Effort changes the brain and body.

Non‑effort also changes the brain and body.

Learning and education are inherently effortful and sustained cognitive engagement.

After two decades of application, significant financial investment, and associated research, evidence accumulated over the past twenty years indicates that the extensive social and educational introduction of computers into classrooms has resulted in a measurable decline in students’ academic and cognitive abilities.

These results clarify the need for pedagogical, educational, and technological resources to be aligned with principles that strengthen the universal cognitive capacities required for learning. These capacities—such as sustained attention, working memory, critical thinking, and analytical reasoning—depend on effortful, self‑initiated engagement, a process shown to rely on the allocation and regulation of mental effort in learning contexts (Grund et al., 2024).

Research further demonstrates that environments that cultivate disciplined thinking, sustained cognitive application, and the systematic acquisition of knowledge are essential for developing students’ academic and social potential (Liu et al., 2024).

Studies examining classroom environments also show that structured, knowledge‑rich, and cognitively demanding learning conditions consistently support robust intellectual development. When these conditions are not fully present, research indicates that students tend to display lower levels of effort and cognitive engagement, which, in turn, lead to lower cognitive, academic, and overall educational potential (Khany & Barzan, 2025).

The Origins of the Digital Classroom Movement

Further to this, Rogelberg (2026) reported that a broad social educational enterprise towards classroom digitisation began in 2002, when Maine launched the first statewide one‑to‑one laptop program.

According to her report, the Maine Learning Technology Initiative distributed 17,000 laptops in its first year and expanded this to 66,000 devices by 2016. However, subsequent analysis indicated that by 2017, Maine’s academic test scores – in terms of advancing educational potential – had not improved.

First Generation to Score Lower Than Its Predecessor

The report by Rogelberg (2026) noted that neuroscientist Jared Cooney Horvath testified before the U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation in 2026, drawing on global data from the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) and other standardised measures to discuss these results. Rogelberg reported that Horvath informed that Gen Z is the first generation in modern U.S. history to score lower than its predecessor.

Further to this, Rogelberg (2026), noting an OECD (2023) study, found that this cognitive decline spanned literacy, numeracy, and problem-solving, which are core indicators of cognitive capability. Crucially, Rogelberg notes that Horvath emphasised a strong correlation between declining academic standards and the increased time spent on computers at school. Horvath also argued that learning is inherently effortful, requiring persistence, sustained cognitive engagement, and self-initiated effort to advance academic and cognitive potential.

The Loss of Effortful Thinking and Persistence

While Rogelberg’s (2026) report provides the most recent account of the educational and cognitive concerns raised by large‑scale classroom digitisation, similar studies documenting declines in skills, knowledge, and overall educational concerns have appeared in the broader research literature for many decades.

Why Education Is Important

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Additional Digital Research

In what could be described as the current “Digital AI Age,” the research indicates that, as previous studies have shown, when computers are used, neither physical nor intellectual effort is required to obtain answers to most questions.

Therefore, when digital technologies displace self‑initiated, effortful thinking and behaviour, there is a legitimate concern that aspects of the brain and cognitive growth are being “negatively” altered rather than enhanced (Nagam, 2023; Sparrow et al., 2011).

For example, using Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) and Diffusion Tensor Imaging (DTI), Hutton and colleagues (2020) found that children aged 3–5 with higher screen time engagement had significantly lower white‑matter (myelin) integrity.

According to Hutton and colleagues, this meant that the essential neurobiological critical connections for language, literacy, and executive function were not developing. Correspondingly, Fields (2008) affirms that this is associated with the neurological architecture children require for thinking, attention, reasoning, learning, self-regulation, and self-management.

Kindergarten and Primary Schools?

It is important to note that during these early years of development, the brain and body require ongoing holistic physical play, and the brain most certainly requires constant, effortful, self-initiated thinking. Computer gaming is not play (Nagam, 2023; Sparrow et al., 2011). As such, the question that must be asked and answered here is: Do we really need computers in kindergarten and primary schools to advance children's intellectual, physical and social potential?

Perhaps this question could best be answered by Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Archimedes, Leonardo da Vinci, Shakespeare, and Sir Isaac Newton—none of whom needed a computer to reshape human understanding and even society itself. Nor did Johannes Gutenberg, Immanuel Kant, René Descartes, Edmund Husserl, Marie Curie, Charles Darwin, Albert Einstein, Rosalind Franklin, Niels Bohr, Gertrude Elion, Alan Turing, Thomas Edison, Jean-Paul Sartre, Jane Goodall, or Rachel Carson.

This list spans centuries and continents: minds that transformed mathematics, physics, biology, philosophy, engineering, literature, the arts, and societies, all built on the foundations of curiosity, conversation, observation, and the “forever” disciplined application of self-initiated thinking and action. Their achievements remind us that the development of human intellect, skills and knowledge requires relentless, effortful, self‑activated thinking and action (Hutton et al., 2020; Paulus et al., 2019; Walsh et al., 2018).

Developmental neuroscience has informed that from birth onwards, the growing and maturing brain depends on continuous, rich experience‑dependent inputs (especially those provided (in the early years) by physical play, exploration, and self‑initiated problem‑solving), to build the immensely complex neural architecture that, in turn, holistically develops the brain and mind, advancing complex thinking, analysis and ongoing intellectual and social innovation (Greenough et al., 1987; Pellegrini & Smith, 1998).

Effort and Non-Effort Change the Brain and Body

The research is direct and to the point. Effort changes the brain and body. Non‑effort also changes the brain and body. As noted, studies show that passive, externally guided digital engagement reduces opportunities for deep intellectual processing, self‑regulation, and the development of physical, emotional, and mental cognitive stamina. In the Digital AI Age, non‑effort does not advance intellectual potential, physical coordination, perseverance, or resilience (Hutton et al., 2020; Lillard, 2013; Lillard et al., 2013; Sigman, 2017; Twenge & Campbell, 2018).

Developmental and educational research also strongly supports this concern. Children who engage in sustained, self‑directed, physically grounded activity show stronger executive functioning, improved emotional self-regulation, self-management potential and more robust long‑term physical play and associated cognitive outcomes than those whose environments which are dominated by passive and digitally dominated technology (Barker et al., 2014; Gray, 2017; Lillard, 2013; Lillard et al., 2013; Pai, 2016).

With this research in place, the question must be asked: Do we currently have a brain‑based, educational, cognitive and academic concern?

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