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When it comes to tech and kids, America has made serious mistakes. For years, children have been allowed unsupervised access to social media apps in school and at home that were not designed with their safety in mind. This has contributed to an unprecedented rise in adolescent anxiety, depression, cyberbullying and suicide. Americans have every reason to be concerned — and every reason to act.  

Responsible legislation could limit the dangers by requiring age verification before kids can sign up for social media accounts, making learning content easier to access and demanding that cellphone providers provide safety tools for families. Instead, a huge wave of poorly constructed bills is working its way through state legislatures that could cause unintended consequences and set young people back even further. 

For example, in Missouri, a bill recently passed the statehouse that will require 70% of elementary school assignments to be completed with pencil and paper and prohibit schools from assigning any homework that uses technology. In Tennessee, legislators passed a bill to ban all technology in grades K-5 for students and teachers. A proposed Kansas measure would mandate that all K-5 instructional materials be “print-based.” Virginia’s Senate has passed legislation directing the state to cap instructional screen time by grade level. And in Utah, a package of bills signed by the governor will sharply curtail the use of technology to support learning.

There are two consistent problems in the current wave of bills. First, they treat distracting entertainment media and research-based educational technology as if they are the same. But not all screen time is created equal, and these bills completely ignore that distinction. Lumping TikTok together with a math tutoring app, or Instagram with a text-to-speech tool for a student with dyslexia, is a practice that has been repeatedly called out by educators. 

Second, they assume that the best way to limit tech use is with a timer. But the issue is quality, not quantity. Many of these bills set a daily time limit (e.g., one hour of digital instruction), though any amount of time would be too much for a student who is not using the technology effectively. On the flip side, technology used thoughtfully to increase student engagement and creativity should not be constrained by an arbitrary time limit, especially when supporting evidence-based pedagogical practices. What’s worse, not one of the bills requiring paper-based worksheets to be used in place of technology imposes any quality standards on the types of activities assigned. According to these bills, a teacher could replace a highly effective math app with a dot-to-dot worksheet, and it would be totally fine. That’s an “out of the frying pan into the fire” situation.

As a parent and former educator, I understand the desire for distraction-free schools. Personal devices and non-learning apps that don’t support educational goals can hijack students’ attention and try any teacher’s patience. But when learning is not engaging, literally anything will become a distraction. Limiting instruction to filling out paper-based worksheets would be mind-numbing for any student.

In contrast, the key to get kids to love learning is to make it meaningful, and this is where ed tech can be a game-changer. Recently, I visited a school in Los Angeles that was transforming math instruction by having students play a research-based math game, which informed the teacher exactly who needed extra help with specific concepts. Other technologies adapt learning activities based on students’ interests or skill levels, let teachers know which kids need help before they fall behind and enable educators to meet each student’s needs in ways that would otherwise be impossible. The effectiveness of these tools is backed by decades of research. A bill like Missouri’s would make this kind of data-informed teaching nearly impossible.

For children with disabilities, assistive technology — screen readers, text-to-speech software, adaptive learning systems and language translation tools — is not just a nice-to-have; it supports millions of students whose needs might otherwise go unmet. Today, nearly 8 million children in the U.S. receive special education services, many of which include technology as part of their individualized education plans. For students with dyslexia using a text-to-speech app, for example, technology isn’t a distraction — it’s how they access learning. Tennessee’s original proposal would have barred teachers from even using digital devices for instruction, meaning the very tools these students depend on could have been eliminated.

In today’s economy, there is no college or career path that doesn’t require the effective use of technology. Students who develop digital literacy skills early find greater academic and professional success than those who don’t. Essentially all jobs — 92% — now require applicants to have digital proficiency. Preventing K-12 students from learning to use technology for writing, research and collaboration would undermine their future employability and the nation’s economic competitiveness.

This is even more striking in a global context. While America’s state legislatures debate whether to let elementary students touch a keyboard, other countries are doubling down on teaching students how to use technology — including artificial intelligence —to solve complex problems. They recognize that technology can enhance curiosity, critical thinking and other essential skills, ensuring their graduates can thrive in the workplace and beyond. 

With the emergence of artificial intelligence, the world is at the dawn of a new era for learning and life. If the nation’s goal is to prepare kids to thrive in a complex and modern economy, it cannot retreat to the tools of the last century.

There is no disputing the need for guidelines and guardrails for children using consumer technology. But by treating math software the same as Netflix, and assistive technology the same as TikTok, the ed tech bans gaining momentum in statehouses around the country guarantee that the students who can least afford to fall behind will be the ones hurt most. If these bills become law, America won’t have protected its children — it will have forced them to learn for a paper-based world that no longer exists.

Banning technology for learning doesn’t make us principled — it makes us negligent.


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