The more that technology has invaded the classroom, the more children are struggling. This is specifically due to the integration of laptops in the learning environment. This very problem was highlighted by Jared Cooney Horvath, a cognitive neuroscientist and educator. His Free Press article is an adapted excerpt from his new book, entitled The Digital Delusion: How Classroom Technology Harms Our Kids’ Learning — and How to Help Them Thrive Again.

Horvath starts out by giving credit where it is due in the fight against tech in schools. He acknowledges Dr. Jonathan Haidt on the crusade against cellphones in schools and being given to kids, and Abigail Shrier on exposing the over-medicalization of kids. While both point to an issue and to the spiraling mental health epidemic, what’s even worse is the academic decline. Horvath points out that the sneaky culprit is actually the use of laptop computers in the classroom as an integrated part of everyday learning.

Horvath writes:

Over the past two decades, educational technology has exploded from a niche supplement into a $400 billion juggernaut woven into nearly every corner of schooling. More than half of all students now use a computer at school for one to four hours each day, and a full quarter spend more than four hours on screens during a typical seven-hour school day. Researchers estimate that less than half of this time is spent actually learning, with students drifting off-task up to 38 minutes of every hour when on classroom devices.

To give some context for screen time for kids of all ages, the maximum amount of screen time per day for a school-aged student (5-18 year olds) should be two hours. So say your child spends 45 minutes in a computer elective, 45 minutes on their laptops typing a paper in class, and 30 minutes scrolling on their phone on the drive to school. They’ve already used up their maximum amount of screen time. What is horrifying to consider is that many schools keep students in front of laptop screens for six or more hours a day.

This amount of screen time has a proven deleterious effect on academic scores. Horvath explains:

The more time students spent on screens at school, the further their scores fell. On average, those who used computers for more than six hours per day scored 65 points lower than their peers who didn’t use them at all. That’s the difference between the 50th and the 24th percentile — equivalent to a two letter-grade drop.

This isn’t just a United States problem, either; this is a pattern other countries have seen with their children as well. The use of the computer is crippling children. They’ve outsourced their brain, and it’s not even their fault.

Here’s another damning part of this puzzle: We have known for a quarter of a century that screens are toxic to learning. Instead of putting on the brakes, schools have spearheaded the push, arguing that they are preparing children for a society that is dominated by screens.

As a former classroom teacher and a mom with friends whose kids are having to navigate screen-filled academics, here are some common things we see.

Kids are coming home and having to rest because their brains are feeling “screen sick.” Moreover, this much screen time is hell for kids with learning disabilities. Say, for example, you have a child who struggles to track words on any page of writing (dyslexia, ADHD, etc.). Pushing that child to start reading on a screen exacerbates the preexisting issues with tracking, further slowing down that child’s progress and confidence.

Screen time severs the mind-body connection. There is a particular type of neural connection formed when children put pen to paper or read something in a physical book. It orients that child in time and in space. That’s why when you’re teaching reading, you teach writing at the same time; they are reciprocal skills that reinforce one another. Horvath, who is a neuroscientist, further elaborates on this phenomenon: “When we read from paper, each word occupies a fixed, physical location. If you’re reading a printout of this piece right now, this sentence exists right here — and this spatial position becomes part of the memory you’re forming. This is why readers often remember where in a book an idea appeared, even if they can’t recall the exact wording. Digital text has no such stability.”

A screen not only outsources learning to a computer but also teaching. Teachers disconnect with students because students’ work is reduced to a data point on a program interface.

Then there’s the ever-present problem of internet access. Even with the best protective software schools can buy, there is no safe way for children to be online anymore. It is only a matter of time before they are exposed to inappropriate or even dangerous content. As careful as our computer teacher was at the Christian school I taught at for almost a decade, fifth graders accidentally saw a pornographic image.

Horvath correctly concludes, “We’re not adapting tools to fit our children; we’re reshaping children to fit the tools. We’re lowering the bar to conceal our kids’ shrinking capacity for comprehension.”

What can we, as parents, teachers, grandparents, or concerned community members, do?

The most important thing you can do for your children is limit screen time. They don’t need to be in front of screens at home or at school. Have them play outside, do a craft, read a book, play quietly in their rooms, have them help with dinner, play a sport, or any number of other activities that don’t involve screens. Studies show that kids with no screen time score the best academically, and it may enrich your relationship with them and your family, in general.

We should also advocate for screens to be entirely removed from classrooms. If we are serious about saving public schooling, this might be a positive step in that direction. Take out the screens: laptops, iPads, phones, etc.

This change obviously won’t happen overnight. In the meantime, print out your child’s reading so that they can physically touch and remember what they’ve read. Highlight and even take notes in the margins.

If we want our kids to succeed, we need to take tech out of classrooms and relegate it to the periphery, or to a computer class. If we do, we may see scores start to creep back up again and maybe even help alleviate the mental health crisis among young people.