Episode 14 “Are Schools Pushers?”

Classrooms have begun to look more like a Best Buy story than a school nowadays. With TVs, and Chromebooks, and tablets everywhere, why are schools pushing so much technology at younger and younger grade levels? And how is it hurting or helping kids? Did you know that technology activates some of the same centers in the brain as drugs do? So every time we watch TV, or use our phone, our brain is creating a reward so that we always seek this 3 dimensional, bright, highly dynamic, button pressing, feed scrolling behavior. And because a child's brain is more plastic and less experienced, these behaviors and rewards are heightened, and is laying the ground work for an addiction…that is, a brain wiring to constantly seek technology. On today's show I talk about this topic and in particular what the research is saying about how this technology push is helping or hurting our kids. We discuss the difference between preparing kids for a world of technology, versus immersing them in it and where this mandate for technology is coming from. *The article written by Eliane Glaser mentioned in this podcast can be found here.